Question 1

Is there a language, dialect, or register, even a way of speaking that was native to you as a child, that you no longer use? When did you put it down? *(Listening for: the suppressed interior vocabulary, the specific moment or gradual erosion of a native register.)*

Question 2

In which language or which register do you think your most unguarded thoughts? Is it the same one you speak publicly? *(Listening for: the gap between public fluency and interior intimacy, the private language that has been discontinued.)*

Question 3

Who, in your current life, are you speaking to when you are closest to your original self? What does that conversation sound like? *(Listening for: the relationships where the translation cost is lowest, the remaining access points to the unperformed self.)*

Question 4

Has the code-switching become a reflex rather than a choice? Can you tell, in the moment, when you are translating and when you are speaking from the original? *(Listening for: the degree of automaticity in self-translation, whether the reader has access to the choice point.)*

Question 5

What would you say, in your softest language, to the version of you that is reading this sentence right now? *(Listening for: direct interior voice, the capacity to speak to oneself with tenderness in a register that does not perform.)*