Say Anything to Anyone, Anywhere: 5 Keys To Successful Cross-Cultural Communication

Chapter 12

The Impact of Mother Tongue Languages

It All Begins Here

Mother tongue languages are the basis for many of our cultural distinctions and behavioral styles. Language is one of the first things we hear when we are born, so it immediately begins to set a brain pattern for how we communicate. The rhythm, sound, and melody of our mother tongue language create the initial path for our shared cultural communication preferences.

Body language naturally moves with the flow of the language we are currently speaking. Our tone of voice sings the melody of this language—and we also think, and have ongoing internal conversations with ourselves, in this language.

True multilingual individuals can switch fairly effortlessly from thinking and speaking in one language to thinking and speaking in another. Typically the language you dream in is the one that is currently dominant—and this isn’t necessarily your mother tongue language. I don’t speak French fluently; however, after a few weeks in a French-speaking country, I begin to dream in French. That will usually continue for a few nights, upon my return to the United States.

The internal conversations we have with ourselves create communication style patterns that express themselves via our external communication. Linguistic research shows that the specific languages we speak affect both our tonality and body language. Our tone of voice moves high and low according to these languages’ sound. Our body language accompanies the tonality ...