Language is not merely a tool for communication — it is deeply intertwined with identity, power, and belonging. The language variety we speak marks us socially: accent, dialect, and lexical choices signal class, region, ethnicity, and education in ways that carry real social consequences. Standard language ideologies — the belief that some language varieties are correct and others inferior — mask what is in reality a social judgement about speakers, not a linguistic fact. All dialects are rule-governed and equally complex; the prestige of Standard English reflects historical power, not linguistic superiority. For multilingual speakers, language choice is also identity choice: many report feeling different people in different languages — more formal, more emotional, more themselves. The politics of language — who gets to speak, in which language, in which spaces — are ultimately politics of power.

💡 Did you know? Approximately 50% of the world's 7,000 languages are expected to disappear by 2100. When a language dies, it takes with it a unique way of categorising experience, a body of oral literature, and a framework for understanding the world.