My name is Ebany and uh I speak English, Portuguese Spanish and German quite fluently. I speak other languages but those were learned later on in life. Um, and those four languages I learned as a result of moving around different countries as a young child. Uh because my parents moved around for work. So I was born in El Salvador and I grew up- uh-. I learned Spanish first, initially monolingually and then gradually German was introduced into my linguistic repertoir. When we moved to Brazil, then I had to learn English and Portuguese because they became the languages of education for me as I entered school. Um, the languages I speak tie in to how I perceive myself in the way that, um, I have had many opportunities because of the fact that I speak different languages, and I am very greatful to the decisions that my parents made to make sure that I did speak, and learned to speak well English, Portuguese, Spanish and German. I am German and Salvadoran by nationality, however I was always educated in English, or Portuguese, which is why I speak English so fluently as well. Um, the language of the home was always Spanish for me, and I find it interesting that when we were young, my parents actually asked my sister and I, uh what language we would like to speak in the home. And we both selected different languages, which wasn't a problem because everybody spoke all those languages but I find it interesting that we identified with different languages having been brought up in a very, in the same kind of nucleus. So I chose to identify with Spanish. I- probably because I had been kind of- I had lived in El Salvador for a longer period of time than she had. And I, I wanted to- at the age of seven I, I already wanted to maintain that connection with, with my background I guess. Whereas my sister, she's much, she's a lot younger. So she didn't spend so much time in El Salvador, and for her growing up the language she was exposed to the most and the language she interacted with other children in because of school was English. So she chose English. So growing up when we were at home, it was very interesting to see us interacting with each other because sometimes my dad would be speaking in German and then I would respond to him in either German or Spanish, and then my sister would come in and she would kind of change the dynamic and we would switch to English. And uh, I find it interesting that even at such a young age, children do have a sense of identity and they can actually tie in the language they speak to that identity. Um, I live in London now, and the decision to move to London was again because of education and the opportunities you have here to further your academic prospects. Um, and it's a comfortable city - I feel very comfortable in it because there are so many languages everywhere and I am very used to being around different languages and really, I don't need to always understand and to me it's almost comforting to not understand. And it's- In the few opportunities that I've had to speak my other languages here, I've never felt um, out of place speaking them, I've always felt very comfortable um walking down the street and speaking in Spanish really loudly, and it's actually really funny because once you start speaking in this other language you realize how many people around you speak it as well and that you're not actually as anonymous as you think you are. But I think it's very uh- it's very interesting how having access to these languages and actually being able to speak them yourself makes you realize that there are different parts of this very large cosmopolitan city.
