Hello from my final stop of this wonderful summer – Auckland, New Zealand! Although it’s summer from the perspective of Chicago – my start and endpoint – it’s a wet winter here in New Zealand. I haven’t just been circling the globe neatly eastward; I’ve been zigzagging up and down! From sunny Wales to rainy South Africa, to stiflingly hot Singapore and the Philippines, and now to cold, damp New Zealand, I’ve hopped back and forth across the equator plenty of times over the last two months. Considering I packed for three different climates, I think I did pretty well fitting everything into one bag. 

I’ve been in Auckland for two full days now. After sleeping for almost a full 12 hours post-arrival Thursday night, I woke up on Friday ready to explore. I took advantage of the sunny day and walked through downtown to the Viaduct Harbour, a lively waterfront area, and found the New Zealand Maritime Museum – a beautiful space overlooking the water with replicas and artifacts spanning the region’s maritime history, from early Polynesian navigation to European arrival. From there, I wandered past the fish market and looped back through the Central Business District. Today, I started my day off with a grocery run, after which I joined some new hostel friends to go watch a rugby match! The match was held at Eden Park, New Zealand’s national stadium, and although we (obviously!) decided to root for Auckland, they were crushed by Taranaki in a staggering 50-8 loss. It was cold and rainy, but meat pies from the stadium concession stands kept us (somewhat) warm. 

Walking around, English dominates the cityscape, as expected. But given New Zealand’s reputation for institutionally supporting te reo Māori – the Māori language – I’ve been surprised at how little Māori signage I’ve actually encountered. 

Te reo Māori only became an official language in 1987, which is astonishing when you consider how central it is to this place. Long before European ships appeared on these shores, Polynesian voyagers navigated here using the stars, ocean currents, and bird patterns – skills so precise that they could intentionally sail thousands of kilometers across the Pacific. These early navigators reached Aotearoa (the Māori name for New Zealand) around the 13th century, making it the last major landmass on earth to be settled by humans. The people who became known as Māori built communities here, adapted to the colder climate compared to other Polynesian islands, and developed their own rich cultural, social, and political structures. Their relationship with the land and sea shaped everything from food systems to spirituality, and their oral traditions carried genealogies, histories, and knowledge across generations.

The language itself lived for centuries in voice alone, passed down through stories, songs, and prayer. It wasn’t written until English missionaries arrived in the 1800s, and the act of writing it down was already a step toward reshaping how it would exist in the world. The pivotal moment, though, came in 1840 with the Treaty of Waitangi. 

The Māori had initially welcomed the visits of Europeans as it was beneficial trade for them, but as settler numbers grew, so did land disputes and lawlessness. The Treaty of Waitangi was presented as a safeguard: Britain sought to establish legal authority over settlers while assuring Māori that their lands and rights would be protected. 

The treaty, as it happened, had two versions. The British Crown and Māori chiefs each signed a document, one in English and one in te reo Māori, but the two documents were not the same. The English version stated that Māori ceded all rights and the power of sovereignty to the Crown. The Māori version used the word kāwanatanga, which can be translated closer to “governance.” One treaty, two interpretations…and the consequences of that linguistic rift were devastating. What was sold as protection to many chiefs soon became a source of dispossession and conflict. 

Depiction of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi

As I read about this, it struck me how eerily it anticipates the questions at the heart of my project: translation is never neutral, and when power is involved, the meaning of a single word can alter the future of an entire people. By the end of the 19th century, the Māori population had been halved. European settlers, meanwhile, numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The imbalance was not just demographic, but linguistic, cultural, and political. The weight of it was visible everywhere I turned in the Maritime Museum, in the labels that struggled to hold two stories at once: the story of the colonizers, and the story of those whose land this was. 

Yet, the story doesn’t end there. Inspired in part by global civil rights movements (like the one in the US), Māori protests in the 20th century forced the government to reckon, at least partially, with its broken promises. The Waitangi Tribunal was established, a body whose purpose is to investigate claims of treaty breaches. Queen Elizabeth II even admitted publicly that the treaty (and therefore the protection of Māori rights) had been ignored. In 1987, te reo Māori was finally recognized as an official language. Progress, though fragile, felt possible…which is why what’s happening right now feels so alarming. 

New Zealand’s current government – one of the most right-leaning in decades – has dismantled the Māori Health Authority, scaled back the use of te reo in official communication, and, just this week, removed Māori words from children’s reading books. A hostel staff member mentioned the debate to me in passing, and then the headlines confirmed it: the Ministry of Education pulled At the Marae, a book for 5-year-olds, from its early reading series because it contained “too many” Māori words. Internal documents revealed the decision is part of a broader policy to exclude Māori vocabulary from any future books in the series altogether, on the grounds that it might “confuse” children. 

The debate has multiple sides, but in my opinion, there are issues here. Not only is New Zealand English already full of Māori loanwords, but te reo Māori was deliberately transcribed into a phonetic orthography designed by English missionaries. In other words, the spelling matches the sound – exactly the kind of straightforward system you’d want children to practice with when learning to connect written words to spoken ones. Around one in five people in Aotearoa identify as Māori. For them, seeing te reo in books, signs, and public life isn’t just decorative, but rather a recognition of their existence. My Maritime Museum guide greeted us in te reo Māori, and it set the tone for everything that followed. To strip those words from children’s books is to say, in effect, that the language does not belong in the mouths of the next generation.

So, as I walk through Auckland – between English billboards, glimpses of Māori words, and chants like the haka, performed on rugby fields and political stages alike – I keep coming back to the idea that languages are not just tools of communication, but ways of being in the world. 

I will, as always, have more to say the more days I spend here. Stay tuned!

A full week has gone by since my interview with the Baybayin artist, and the more I uncover Manila, the more I wish I had time to explore other parts of the Philippines. I’ve learned that this beautiful country is made up of over 7,000 islands, all of which together are home to around 180 languages. Given this incredible linguistic diversity, one would think there would be interest in studying languages and linguistics…but as a linguistics professor from the University of the Philippines shared in our interview on Friday, there doesn’t seem to be much interest in the subject. Before I dive into my reflections from that interview, below are some photos from my last week in Manila. 

A sari-sari store, or neighborhood convenience store

Stall at the Salcedo Market

In between interviews, I’ve been wandering through the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Anthropology, navigating the lively streets of Binondo (the world’s oldest Chinatown, full of Mandarin signage thanks to the long-standing local Chinese community), and sampling street food like kwek-kwek (quail eggs in friend dough), turon, and colorful drinks in melon, calamansi, and avocado flavors. I even braved balut – a fertilized duck egg that is boiled and eaten with salt and vinegar. I’ve hopped in tuk tuks and Manila’s iconic jeepneys – brightly decorated, repurposed military jeeps left behind by the Americans that have now become a cultural icon of the Philippines. For 13 pesos per person (around $0.23), you can hop on and off anywhere along the route, signaling the driver to stop by hitting the roof and calling “para!” I was glad to have the company of other travelers for my first jeepney ride; there’s no way I would have been able to learn the unspoken rules otherwise!

Kwek-kwek vendor stall…

…and what I received!

Binondo Chinatown

The past week also brought new friends: a Spanish traveler I met at my hostel joined me for the Salcedo Saturday Market and a Sunday wandering Intramuros (meaning “within walls”), the historic walled city that houses Spanish colonial architecture. We went into centuries-old churches, Fort Santiago, the National Museum of Fine Arts, and caught the sunset at Rizal Park, which was packed with families and street performers. Earlier in the week, I went to a “lecture on tap” event – an academic talk held in a bar – hosted by the Digital Nomad Association of the Philippines. The speaker, a communications professor from De La Salle University (DLSU), was someone I’d already been in touch with, and the event led me to meet a woman my age who’s lived in the Philippines for 13 years after growing up in the US, China, and Hong Kong. A few days later, we met for lunch at a local Korean restaurant and then grabbed a coffee in Makati. 

Intramuros

On Wednesday afternoon, I interviewed a local police officer who, in his mid-thirties, somehow balances his work on the force with guiding tours of the city and studying pediatrics at DLSU. He grew up in Tondo, one of Manila’s poorest districts, where only a handful of his childhood friends “made it out.” He described the stark divide between public and private schools, the dangers of the Isla (a place even police avoid due to entrenched crime networks), and his fluency in English, Tagalog, and Bisaya. He offered his take on the Philippines’ colonial past: that Spanish is not widely spoken despite centuries of rule because of the cruelty of the Spanish era, while the Japanese occupation was remembered as even more brutal. Yet he insisted Filipinos harbor “no hard feelings” toward visitors from former colonizing countries, welcoming them without grudges. 

Balut

Turon (a sweet, dough-wrapped banana treat!)

Early Friday afternoon, I once again made my way from Makati to Quezon City, this time to the University of the Philippines Diliman campus. When I last visited this part of Manila to interview the Baybayin artist, I actually arrived – apologetically – about a half hour late. This time, now a seasoned Manila traffic veteran, I made sure to get going with plenty of time. Once I arrived (on time!), I met with a professor in the UP linguistics department – the only university linguistics department, I soon learned, in the entirety of the Philippines. While some other universities may offer programs in linguistics, there is no standalone department for the subject. The UP department is staffed by about sixteen full-time faculty, with roughly seventy graduate students and twice as many undergraduates. That is the entire academic infrastructure for a nation of over a hundred million people.

But numbers only tell part of the story. The more compelling reality emerged as we spoke about what the work of a linguist in the Philippines actually entails. Here, a linguist’s work cannot be devoted solely to language. In other countries, it’s possible to devote a career to a single subfield – phonology, syntax – without needing to justify why it matters beyond academic circles. But in the Philippines, he explained, if you are a linguist, you are by default an advocate and an activist. The work is not just research; it’s a responsibility. If you do not fight for endangered languages (of which there are about 35 in the Philippines), no one else will. I thought about how many linguists in the U.S., including students like me, have the privilege of seeing linguistic activism as optional rather than intrinsic to the field.

Government involvement in language revitalization, I learned, is uneven at best. The Philippines has two official languages: English and Filipino, the latter being a standardized form largely based on Tagalog and influenced by other regional languages. The Commission on the Filipino Language is tasked with promoting the country’s linguistic diversity, but internal disputes often derail progress. The Commission commonly seeks the expertise of linguists like my interlocutor, but meetings are sometimes postponed because members are at odds, and despite the Commission’s mandate, no trained linguists sit among its members. Instead, it is composed of regional representatives and various stakeholders – a structure my interviewee suggested could be more effective if informed by people with expertise spanning multiple language families and regions. Even the commission’s name, centered on “Filipino,” subtly narrows its focus, despite its aim to develop, preserve, and promote various Philippine languages. 

Against this backdrop, there are still deeply committed projects. My interviewee co-leads an ongoing project to create orthographies for the non-Tagalog languages of MIMAROPA, an administrative region whose acronym is a combination of its constituent provinces: Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, and Palawan. It’s a project initiated by the Indigenous Peoples Education Program of the MIMAROPA Division of the Department of Education, and it brings linguists into direct collaboration with community members to design spelling guides and written standards. Much like the Welsh Language Commissioner’s work in Wales, these experts operate in an advisory capacity – at the end of the day, it is up to the local governments to decide what they wish to actually implement. 

My interviewee described traveling to MIMAROPA with his team to work directly with community members on creating these orthographies. Much of that work involves sitting with elders, talking through words, and deciding how best to represent them in writing. For some, these conversations bring a sudden and painful awareness: that their language is literally dying. The way their parents spoke, the words their grandparents used in daily life, are no longer heard or seen anywhere, and their descendants – their grandchildren – use a different language entirely. They are the last speakers, and with them will go not just vocabulary but the culture and stories those words carry. It can be an emotional and painful process, my interlocutor explained, for the communities involved. Preserving a dying language is like protecting a family heirloom, except here, the family is an entire people, bound by a shared past and a story of survival against every attempt to erase them. The very fact that these words are still spoken, however faintly, is proof that people endured.

Two years ago, in a seminar on Brazilian film, I watched Xingu, a movie based on the story of three brothers whose journey into the Amazon gradually transforms into a mission to protect Indigenous lands in Brazil. One thread of the film mirrors the purpose behind my project: the portrayal of a language on the brink of extinction, spoken fluently by only two remaining people. With the help of a linguist, they begin to develop an orthography, documenting and carrying this language forward. Listening to this professor’s stories about the MIMAROPA project and about elders who realize they may be the last voices of their mother tongue, I recalled the story told in Xingu. What I had once seen as a moving subplot in a film is, for many here, an urgent reality. It’s the same fight – whether in the Amazon or on an island in the Philippines – to make sure that when the last fluent speaker is gone, the language doesn’t vanish with them. 

With that, my stay in Manila is coming to an end. I’m incredibly grateful for what I’ve learned in my time here, not just in relation to this project, but also about my own relationships to research, travel, and people. I have another 20-hour travel day tomorrow, flying first from Manila to Kuala Lumpur, and from there to Auckland. I’ve learned that wherever you think New Zealand is, it’s probably a little farther! 

Thank you to everyone who has been keeping up with this journey. I’ll be writing from my fifth and final country soon!

It’s a rainy afternoon here in Manila. I know it hasn’t been long since my last post, but yesterday’s interview with an artist who works with Baybayin left me with so many lasting impressions that I felt it deserved a post of its own. I hope this post leaves you with even a fraction of the awe and excitement yesterday’s conversation gave me.

First, some background information: Baybayin is an ancient, pre-colonial Filipino script that was once used to write Tagalog, which remains one of the most commonly spoken languages in the Philippines. Today, Tagalog is written with the same Latin alphabet I’m using to write this post, but its sounds were once carved into elegant sweeps of intersecting swirls and dots, using characters from the alphabet below: 

The ancient script faded from everyday use over centuries, but in recent years, there’s been a growing movement to bring it back. On Monday afternoon, I had the opportunity to speak with a visual artist whose work centers around Baybayin calligraphy. We met at a café in Quezon City, one of Metro Manila’s many puzzle pieces. His story begins at the University of the Philippines, where he studied design and fine arts before moving to Japan for a career opportunity. There, he worked under a Shodō artist, studying Japanese calligraphy for the better part of a year. He told me that what struck him most in Japan wasn’t the art form itself, but the way calligraphy was treated as an extension of cultural identity. He saw Japanese people of all ages practicing this centuries-old tradition, and realized he was investing more energy in understanding someone else’s culture than his own. So, he moved back to the Philippines to do the same with Baybayin. 

Learning Baybayin wasn’t hard, he said. The script maps pretty directly onto modern spoken Tagalog – it’s just another writing system. He didn’t take any formal classes; like most people who start learning Baybayin, he just Googled a chart (much like the one above). His art style is very specific: large-scale, one-of-a-kind acrylic paintings on canvas. He doesn’t work with prints or merchandise much because his interest is in Baybayin as fine art, although Baybayin can be seen on some storefronts, souvenirs, currency, and passports. He primarily uses chisel-tip acrylic markers (not brushes), since they’re the best for large-scale precision. Smaller, brush-style calligraphy still shows up in his paper-based work, but his current practice is very shaped by scale and form. 

There are two strands to his work: the art and the advocacy. The art is what sustains him, and what allows him to give talks and workshops about his art and journey for free. He’s especially drawn to the Filipino diaspora, because, as he put it, the diaspora is often more “hungry” for this sort of cultural anchor than Philippine-born Filipinos. When he visits Filipino communities abroad, especially in the U.S., he meets younger people who were raised by immigrant parents who intentionally distanced them from Tagalog. A lot of these kids were raised not to speak with an accent, or taught that sounding American was important. Now, as young adults, they’re trying to reconnect. He told me about a U.S. tour he did in 2022, where he visited universities, Filipino community centers, and even big companies like Google. Back in the Philippines, he’s collaborated with foreign embassies and is currently working with the Filipino embassy in Japan on an exhibit celebrating 70 years of diplomatic relations. 

As we talked, the conversation shifted toward the script itself – not just what Baybayin says, but how it looks. His interest in the form of writing started in childhood, when he loved the visual feel of orthography more than the meaning of the words. That fascination has matured into a kind of visual etymology – a theory about why the script’s symbols look the way they do. Scholars currently think the Baybayin script, with its curved and elegant form (which lends itself beautifully to calligraphy), likely descends from or was influenced by other Southeast Asian scripts like Kawi, once used across Java, Bali, and Sumatra. Both Kawi and Baybayin are abugidas, meaning that consonant-vowel pairs are written as a single unit. In contrast to English, where consonants and vowels are represented by separate letters, an abugida uses one character for a consonant and its inherent vowel. Diacritics – symbols added above, below, or around the character – are then used to change or remove that vowel sound (much like accent marks in French). If you look for it, you can often see a script’s origin in its shapes; ancient Greek, for example, is quite angular because it is much harder to etch a curved line into stone or clay than a straight one. According to my interlocutor, Baybayin seems to carry a similar intentionality.

He shared his theory on the character for “ka”, a prefix in Tagalog that denotes companionship or a shared experience of some sort (kapatid = sibling, kapitbahay = neighbor) – it’s relational. He pointed out that “ka” in Baybayin contains visual echoes of the character “ha”, which is the root of words like hangin (wind, nature spirit, ancestors) and hinga (breathing, living). In fact, “ka” looks like it’s composed of two “ha” symbols. His theory? That “ha” originally symbolized something like the breath of life, or spirit, and that “ka” – with its doubled “ha”-like elements – visually represents two spirits, or individuals, in relation. “Ka,” he says, puts the self in the context of a collective. It was fascinating to hear someone approach the script not from a strictly linguistic angle but from an aesthetic and artistic one. 

After all this, he paused for a second, shared that he knew of a nearby art supplies store, and said he would be right back. A few minutes later, he returned with a notebook and three markers. He showed me the difference between brush and chisel tips, explained the varying levels of control with each, and then began his calligraphy. He first illustrated a few common words he uses in his work (like tiwala, meaning “trust”). Then, he did my name – both my first and last. “Maya” was simple to write, easy to syllabify. But my surname – Kraidy, of Lebanese origin – took some effort. When I saw him struggling to transliterate it into Baybayin, I offered up its original Arabic pronunciation; the sound mapping seemed to click into place for him. It reminded me of what happens when I try to write names in Arabic that are from another language – the sounds don’t match perfectly, so you have to reshape things. The classic example referenced among friends and family in Qatar is the bilingual shop signs found on Papa John’s pizza storefronts, in which the Arabic reads something more like “Baba Zhoonz.”

The Arabic pronunciation of my surname actually “fit” better into Baybayin than the English. A lot of people, he mentioned, actually mistake his art for Arabic calligraphy, and it’s not hard to see why. Both Baybayin and Arabic share a flowing aesthetic, and both use small marks – dots, dashes, – to indicate vowel changes. It was truly amazing to watch his artistic process unfold in front of me, and to relate it to one of my own native languages.

“Kraidy” in Baybayin calligraphy

He ended up gifting me this notebook at the end of the interview. On our way out of the café, we discussed some “Filipinisms” – expressions and habits that make perfect sense here but might confuse outsiders. I’ll include some of those in a future blog post, to save you from scrolling forever. I didn’t expect to walk away with so many thoughts and a notebook full of original art when I ordered my iced milk tea, but here we are. Turns out iced milk tea pairs perfectly with ancestral scripts and spontaneous wisdom.

Happy August! 

I’ve now been in the Philippines for just under a week. Since all of my interviews are scheduled for this upcoming week, I’ve taken the past few days to acquaint myself with my new surroundings, focus on my writing, and organize my ever-growing photo archive. Manila, so far, feels very different from most of the other cities I’ve visited over the past two months. It’s more of a place where people live and work than a city full of major sights or attractions. That’s especially interesting given Manila’s rich history as a port city and its role in global trade. Still, there’s a reason many travelers pass through quickly on their way to the islands, or forgo the city altogether; most travel guides only list a handful of things to do in Manila if you’re visiting as a tourist. I’ve noticed that the vast majority of people staying at my hostel – which feels more like a budget hotel – are only here on a very short-term basis. Most of the crowd actually consists of Filipinos from other areas of the country who need a place to stay in Manila for a few days, and the rest are foreigners who have an overnight layover before their flight to one of the islands.

I usually enjoy walking around as a way to get to know a place and pick up on its atmosphere, but I quickly realized that’s not really how Manila works. Between heavy traffic, long travel times, and wide areas with no sidewalks, the city isn’t particularly walkable. Adding to that, Metro Manila is actually made up of sixteen smaller cities, which makes it feel more fragmented. All of this has made it a bit challenging to just wander and explore, but I’ve still managed to check some things off of my list this week. 

One place in Manila that is actually very walker-friendly is Bonifacio Global City, or BGC (see left). This area, in contrast to much of Manila, was developed as a sleek, modern, business and lifestyle district that invites dog-walkers and corporate professionals alike. I spent most of yesterday afternoon in BGC, starting with a visit to the Mind Museum and walking the length of Bonifacio High Street, with its malls, shops, and restaurants, before ending up at Market Market!, a collection of food and clothing stalls. BGC feels like a mix between Times Square and Chicago’s Magnificent Mile – modern high-rises and glamorous shopping areas set among neatly trimmed green spaces, curated cafés, and massive digital billboards. It had a completely different atmosphere to that of Makati – where I’m staying – and other, more “normal” parts of the Metro I’ve seen. One such part was the SM Mall of Asia, which, alongside BGC, is one of the suggestions often found on many a (limited) list of things to see in Manila. This mall in Pasay city is the largest shopping mall in the Philippines and the second-largest in Southeast Asia, complete with retail stores, restaurants, a bowling alley, an ice-skating rink, a movie theater, and more. It’s been interesting to see the different sides of Manila and to think about who each part of the city is built to serve. I also tried Jollibee, the Filipino fried chicken fast food chain, at the mall. I’ve had it in the US, but I’ve been told that trying it while here in the Philippines is a must – I will say, the chicken here seemed extra crispy.

One thing I’ve actually enjoyed in an unexpected way is how my social media feed has adapted to where I am. Lately, I’ve been seeing videos by Manila influencers, as well as local commentary on those videos, which gives me a sense of what people my age here are thinking about as they navigate daily life. It’s offered a glimpse into Filipino beauty standards, class divides, and how fashion, language, and habits reflect those divides. BGC, for instance, is definitely an affluent area. I saw one post where someone from Manila said that BGC is where the rich live and where everyone else goes to pretend to be rich – food for thought. I’ve also come across videos where people use a certain accent to imitate the types of people that might live in BGC; apparently, people of a particular socioeconomic class speak in a noticeably different way and code-switch between English and Tagalog in a very distinct pattern, which is unsurprising to me but noteworthy nonetheless.

A bilingual museum sign

As a native speaker of Spanish, it’s been really interesting to notice the Spanish influence on Tagalog and on the speech patterns of Filipinos. First of all, it’s worth noting that the Philippines has been colonized or occupied by the Spanish, the Americans, and the Japanese over the course of history. As such, many Filipinos speak both Tagalog (or another Philippine language, like Cebuano, which is more widely spoken in the south) and English – typically code-switching between the two in a pattern sometimes referred to as Taglish. However, roughly a third of Tagalog’s vocabulary has its origins in Spanish. What’s striking is that these Spanish words often appear almost unchanged – like mesa (table), trabaho (work), or lunes (Monday) – yet the grammar, structure, and surrounding words of the sentence remain entirely Tagalog. This stands out to me in contrast to Romance languages – say, Italian, for example. Both Italian and Tagalog “resemble” Spanish, but when I hear spoken Italian, it sort of resembles Spanish in the same way, as a whole. Tagalog, on the other hand, alternates between almost exactly matching Spanish and taking a completely different form altogether. The best analogy I can think of is that if Spanish is chocolate cake and not-Spanish is vanilla cake, Italian is like a marbled chocolate and vanilla loaf while Tagalog is like a layer cake that alternates between chocolate and vanilla. Spanish and Tagalog don’t share a language family like Spanish and Italian do (as Tagalog is an Austronesian language), and because Spanish was learned mostly as a prestigious or religious language during the time the Spanish occupied the Philippines, its influence didn’t really “creolize” Tagalog. It’s fascinating to see how people’s everyday speech reflects the historical contact between languages with very different roots.

A city definitely doesn’t have to be “tourist-friendly” to be interesting – in fact, what has made Manila interesting is that, for the most part, it caters to its own people. Tomorrow, I’ll be interviewing an artist who uses Baybayin, an ancient Filipino script used to write Tagalog in pre-colonial Philippines, in his work. More to come soon!

Maya 

Hello everyone! 

My second (and last) week in Singapore was full of trying not to get lost, trying not to sweat, and trying to understand languages I don’t speak. I spent a few days walking around more of Singapore’s cultural nodes like Arab Street and Haji Lane as well as Joo Chiat and the Peranakan houses. Another day consisted of a long walk from Arab Street across downtown through Merlion Park and the marina, all the way to the famous hawker centre Lau Pa Sat. Every weekday at 7pm, the street behind Lau Pa Sat is shut down to traffic, filled with outdoor seating, and turned into what is called Satay Street – a row of satay stalls that pump out thousands of chicken, beef, and prawn satay sticks a night to hungry tourists and locals alike (although the large majority of the crowd is made up of foreigners).

Satay Street

This hawker centre is unlike many others across Singapore in that it is, quite obviously, a tourist hive. Although hawker culture in general is very Singaporean and a commonly listed must-do experience on many travel guides (not to mention a UNESCO-recognized Intangible Cultural Heritage), the hawker centres that are frequented by locals rarely exhibit the same curated aesthetic as Lau Pa Sat. Where other hawker centres house small metal stalls that are often cash-only, Lau Pa Sat features food-truck style, decorated eateries that are “mobile payment friendly,” as they often advertise. Other hawker centres’ desserts may be ang ku kueh (a Chinese sweet dumpling) or kuih seri muka (a Malaysian steamed layer cake), while Lau Pa Sat’s include croissants, ice cream, and donuts.

It was a super interesting visit signage-wise, as many of these differences are also reflected in the language, wording, and other semiotic elements used throughout the space. Below are a few examples:

A stall with neon signage, not found in other hawker centres

A stall featuring “Western Food”

English signpost

I also got to visit the National University of Singapore’s campus, where I interviewed a Chinese PhD student in NUS’s English Language and Linguistics department. A large part of what we discussed was Singapore’s Peranakan culture and its contested existence as a relic of the past vs a current lived identity. The term Peranakan is typically used to refer to the ethnic group that are descendants of Chinese immigrants to Southeast Asia who intermarried with local Malay communities…however, some understand the term to encompass any person of mixed native and foreign ancestry. Another point of tension is whether this identity is a dead culture or still active – as in, whether it is simply a part of Singapore’s history or a current identity that one can still hold. My interlocutor shared that one of his friend’s ex-boyfriends self-identifies as Peranakan, even though his mother – who is the only source of his mixed heritage – doesn’t use the term to describe herself. To my interlocutor, it felt more like a performance than a lived identity, as if the label was being used to signal cultural capital or uniqueness. The way he put it, calling yourself Peranakan, when even your mixed-race parent doesn’t, feels a little insincere, which I thought was interesting. 

My last interview was with a linguist at Brown University who was in Singapore doing some fieldwork. Much of his work in the past has consisted of interviewing Singaporeans about Singlish’s use, popularity, and cultural ties. The commercialization of Singlish is evident all across Singapore – in souvenir gift shops (including the one at NUS), restaurants, and even the name of my local SIM card (Connect Lah!), the use of Singlish particles like lah, leh, and lor has been co-opted into branding that feels authentic and cheeky, yet safely commodified. However, in his opinion, there seems to be no clear consensus on what actually counts as Singlish. In his interviews, everyone has a different definition – some say it’s simply whatever Singaporeans speak, while others insist it’s a distinct variety with its own features. Some people view Singlish as universal and unmarked, while others, especially those from older or more elite backgrounds, actively distance themselves from it. For instance, one of his dissertation committee members, who was also a government ambassador, insisted she does not speak Singlish at all, despite her audience often identifying her speech as Singlish, which exemplifies a generational and ideological divide. There’s also a clear ideological boundary between Singlish and its Malaysian counterpart, Manglish. While the two varieties share features, people in Singapore often reject the idea that Malays in Singapore could be speaking Manglish, as it’s seen as geographically and politically inappropriate. 

I also learned that in schools, Standard Mandarin is the only Chinese variety taught and promoted. Students who are ethnically identified as Chinese are required to study Mandarin and cannot opt out, while other racial groups (e.g., Indian students) may have the option to opt in. Chinese dialects such as Hokkien or Teochew are largely excluded from formal education and official discourse. They may appear briefly in end-of-year or enrichment activities where students are asked to learn a phrase from a grandparent – but even these moments are framed around Mandarin, with prompts like “How would you say this in Mandarin?” This reflects an underlying policy of dialect suppression. Mandarin holds clear economic and social capital. Even a limited ability to speak it can grant access – for example, communicating with a plumber directly instead of hiring a translator can save money. It’s not necessarily about fluency, but about gaining access to certain linguistic and economic spaces.

In my last blog post, I talked a little bit about linguistic inaccessibility when it comes to older generations. I noticed a bit of this in a few museum visits – many automatic doors throughout the Asian Civilisations Museum feature warnings that the door swings outward, presumably prompting visitors not to get too close. However, this warning appears only in English, and does not include any iconography (that is, the message is in words only). Despite the potentially humorous vision this scenario might evoke, it is worth considering that if you cannot read English, you are very likely to get smacked by the door on your way to the next gallery. This may not often lead to serious injury, but we can imagine that if the visitor happens to be elderly and lacking the ability to quickly move out of the way, the repercussions may be fairly serious. A lack of multilingual signage has also caused harm with younger populations – there have been instances where signage in and around a construction site has been in a language a worker cannot understand, which has led to injury and even death. These situations can often seem rare or not inherently tied to language, but because signs are essential forms of communication and provide access to information, inadequate signage can absolutely lead to physical harm.

On a lighter note, one of my favorite recurring signs in Singapore is the one prohibiting durian, the spiky fruit with an infamously pungent smell. The “No Durian” symbol often appears right next to typical “No Smoking” and “No Food” warnings in confined or shared spaces. It’s on MRT platforms, hostel elevators, and even fridge doors. The idea that a fruit has a smell so bad that it warrants official signage is hilarious to me. Also, it’s particularly funny that in the sign to the right, possession of durian in this space lands you a fine double of that for eating or drinking.

I flew from Singapore to Manila on Monday night, and after taking yesterday to catch up on sleep and do a load of laundry, I’m ready to explore Manila today! Being in my second-to-last country is surreal to say the least. Thank you to the Circumnavigators Club and to everyone who has been a part of this adventure!

It is only my fifth full day in Singapore and there’s already so much to say! After Wales, South Africa, and now Singapore, left-hand traffic rules have almost become second nature to me. 

Duck noodle soup

It wouldn’t feel morally right to create a blog post about Singapore and not share the marvels of its food scene. For the past few days, I’ve been busy trying all of the hawker centres and $5 dollar Michelin Star meals I can find. So far, I’ve had the traditional Singaporean breakfast of kaya toast (toast with coconut jam dipped in runny egg with soy sauce) as well as duck noodle soup, pork and chive dumplings, butter chicken and naan, butadon, chilli crab bao buns, nasi lemak, otah (fish cake wrapped in banana leaves), and of course, kopi (Singaporean style coffee and also the Malay word for coffee). It’s safe to say there’s always more food to try in Singapore. 

Clive St sign and mural in Little India

Hawker centre in Chinatown

Apart from this food rampage, I’ve visited the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) campus, walked around Chinatown and Little India, explored parts of Jurong East and the Jurong Lake Gardens, and visited both the Indian Heritage Center and the National Museum of Singapore. 

I had my first interview this morning, with a linguist from NTU who has a background in secondary school teaching and currently studies approaches to interactional sociolinguistics and ethnography in Singapore. Below are some of my reflections from this interview and from my experiences and observations over the past few days:

A crucial thing to understand about Singapore is that the state enforces a bilingual education policy: students must learn English (typically the primary language of instruction) and a “Mother Tongue” (MT), which is assigned based on race and not necessarily on the language one actually speaks at home. The state uses the CMIO model – Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Other – to racially classify people, which loosely maps onto the country’s four official languages: Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu (Malay), Tamil, and English. This model assumes that one race equals one culture equals one language. 

Warning sign at construction zone – English, Mandarin, Tamil, Malay

MTs are usually assigned according to one’s father’s race, and while mixed-race individuals can nowadays technically choose between their identities, many still default to the father’s side for tradition’s sake (or for pragmatic reasons, like choosing Chinese because of Mandarin’s economic and international value). Even children who don’t fit into CMIO neatly still have to pick a MT to study in school. This rigid structure is framed as promoting racial equality, but in practice, it requires constant maintenance and ends up reinforcing artificial divisions.

English is the dominant working language, essential for international business, education, and survival in the global economy. Despite high literacy and widespread home use, especially among younger generations, English isn’t recognized as a legitimate part of Singaporean heritage by the state. The government frames English as purely functional – useful but culturally empty. Plenty of younger Singaporeans see English as their first or native language, but this clashes with state ideology. Compared to places like Cardiff, where young people are reviving indigenous/mother tongue languages, here it’s the opposite: kids are leading the shift to English at home.

The state discourages people from learning languages outside their assigned MT, framing it as a threat to racial balance. At the same time, it promotes English for economic reasons – which is the same logic some families use when choosing to study Mandarin or other useful languages. The system is stuck: if too many non-Chinese people learn Mandarin, it looks like favoritism. But denying it to them can also seem unfair. These contradictions emerge because the state has tied language so tightly to race that it can’t adapt easily when real people make different choices.

Singlish, a local variety of English mixed with Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, and other influences, is widely spoken but officially discouraged. The government has tried to suppress Singlish through the Speak Good English Movement, partly because it’s seen as damaging to Singapore’s international image. Still, Singlish is alive and evolving – youth are now mixing in Korean and Japanese phrases too. Even when people speak their assigned MT, it’s often a localized version – like Singaporean Tamil, which isn’t always intelligible to Tamil speakers from India. These hybrid forms reflect how people actually live and speak, even if they don’t align with official language categories.

The state uses language policy as part of nation branding – projecting Singapore as modern and global (via English) but also deeply rooted in culture (via MTs). Multilingual signage, museum materials, and public campaigns often include all four official languages, but usually in symbolic or curated ways. MRT (Singapore’s subway system) announcements, for example, include all four, but the order often reflects population hierarchies, even if unintentionally. An attempt to make transport announcements only in English and Mandarin some years ago backfired – even many Chinese Singaporeans saw it as catering to mainland migrants over local diversity. National Day (which is coming up – August 9!) songs and posters are supposed to appear in all four languages, but this isn’t always carried out consistently.

In Singapore, there’s no formal or universal signage policy requiring bilingual or multilingual signs. Public transport, government notices, and tourist areas sometimes may use all four official languages – but largely for image, not functionality. Hawker centres and neighborhood spaces reflect more bottom-up multilingualism (i.e. signs created by people rather than by the government), showing the actual languages people use. At hospitals, older people may struggle if signs aren’t in their language,  and most museums are English-only. Some neighborhoods (like Kampong Glam) have curated murals and signs in multiple languages, but most street art is commissioned and top-down. Even things like Chinese script (simplified vs. traditional) vary across contexts depending on the audience being targeted.

Bottom-up sign (created by an individual) looking for a roommate and stressing racial/ethnic requirement

Sticker in English and Mandarin, individual looking for shophouse

In contrast to the younger population, most older Singaporeans wouldn’t call themselves native English speakers. Despite Singapore’s wealth, there’s little structural care for the elderly, who often work menial jobs like cleaning or tray return at hawker centres. The country is deeply future-focused, often at the expense of the older generation’s needs – including linguistic accessibility. Public infrastructure doesn’t always accommodate non-English speakers, even though that includes a significant portion of the aging population.

Like I said – so much to say! I’ve heard plenty of travelers say you can do Singapore in just a few days, but I think that depends on what you want to see. I’ve been here for five days and still feel like there is so much more to discover! Still on my to-do list are the Gardens by the Bay, Arab Street and Haji Lane, the Botanical Gardens, and a few more museums. I also have a couple of interviews scheduled for later this week. 

Until then!

Language is always there in the background, quietly shaping space and movement, whether people talk about it directly or not. During my first interview, I learned that Ditsong Museums (operating across Pretoria and Johannesburg) have an official language policy grounded in the South African constitution. On paper, they commit to using English, Afrikaans, isiZulu, and Sesotho. These are supposed to appear across external communication, exhibitions, and internal operations. But what’s on paper and what plays out are two different things. According to the policy, exhibits are in English and one “adopted language,” depending on the audience. Tour scripts and programs can be offered in any of the four languages, but only “visitor preference permitting,” and translation is available – again, if requested. This means the burden is on the visitor to ask. If you understand English, you’re unlikely to go out of your way to request another language, and even less likely to know that you can. So English, while officially just one of four languages in use, functions as the default – silently signaling priority and importance. 

Ditsong’s marketing manager also described how the physical location and subject matter of a museum might influence what languages you see represented. For instance, a museum dealing with paleontology or meteorites (like their Museum of Natural History, which I visited) is less concerned with cultural-linguistic representation than one focused on ethnography or material history (like their Museum of Cultural History or Kruger Museum). Some museums have limited audio content, mostly in response to accessibility concerns – visitors who struggle to read small text or who are visually impaired have given Ditsong this feedback. But, for the most part, English dominates both signage and the website. There’s an effort underway to make the site multilingual, but English’s reach – especially with international visitors – keeps it at the center. 

I was fascinated by how this interview turned toward the role of museums as community hubs. My interlocutor emphasized that Ditsong doesn’t want their museums to be purely academic or didactic spaces. Many of their museums have beautiful courtyards, gardens, and even overnight accommodation for visitors at more remote sites. One museum site hosts weddings; another holds community fun runs followed by music and food. These choices aren’t just about generating revenue (though that’s certainly part of it); they’re about redefining what a museum is for – making it a lived and loved part of the community. This desire to create accessible, social, and healing spaces is also what motivated them to expand into programming about indigenous knowledge and medicinal plants. I was told that at Tswaing Meteorite Crater, their meteorite site museum, there’s a strong focus on this connection between land, memory, and wellness. It’s an entirely different kind of “knowledge production” than what museums are traditionally known for. 

In the same conversation, I also learned something I hadn’t expected: a short history of how some Southern Bantu languages were standardized. Sesotho, Setswana, and Sepedi all originated from a common linguistic ancestor. The names of countries like Lesotho and Botswana literally mean “land of the Sotho/Tswana people.” But what really struck me was the story behind the orthography of these languages – how they came to be written and not just spoken. In the 1830s, French missionaries arrived in what is now Lesotho. They learned the spoken language and began teaching literacy using French spelling rules. That’s why, for instance, the /wa/ sound in Setswana is spelled “wa,” but in Sesotho, it’s “oa” – a quirk that reflects the French use of o + vowel to make the sound /w/ (oiseau, for example). Similarly, where Setswana uses “we,” Sesotho might use “oe.” It’s a small detail that tells a big story: colonial powers didn’t just document languages – they shaped them, embedding their own phonetic habits into structures that still exist today. 

Another conversation that shifted how I think about language was with a sociolinguist who studies what he calls the “semiotic landscape.” It’s not just about words on signs, he explained, but about anything visual that communicates meaning. One example he shared was of a trilingual road sign in English, Afrikaans, and Tswana. The English was printed at the top, easily visible to drivers; Afrikaans and Tswana were lower down – eye-level for pedestrians. The sign wasn’t just multilingual, but also encoded assumptions about who was driving, who was walking, and who needed which language. The conversation made me rethink my photography method. I have of course been photographing signs themselves, but now I find myself stepping back, noticing how and where the signs are placed and the context that surrounds them, not just what they say. In touristy areas or places trying to seem “authentic,” language can also function more symbolically. He pointed out that certain languages get used to signal cultural credibility, used because it “feels local” to consumers. It’s a performance of authenticity, typically more about trendiness or branding than communication. That theme came up again with a young tour guide I talked to, who leads walking tours around Soweto and the inner city. He lives in Soweto and speaks ten of South Africa’s official languages. When I asked which one he didn’t speak, he smiled and said, “South African Sign Language – but I want to learn.” He told me that in Soweto, unlike the city center, there are hardly any visible street signs – no overhead posts, and the street curb labels that are commonplace across South African cities have mostly faded or crumbled away. People navigate more by memory and landmarks than by written names. 

He described an area near the Mzimhlope station that locals reference as the ‘herd of elephants,’ apparently because of the way the tightly packed houses look – language as metaphor, drawn from landscape and familiarity rather than street maps. Walking around Soweto, I kept noticing how place names themselves hold layers of meaning. Mzimhlophe means “white houses” in isiZulu, referring to the standardized color of the homes in that area. Jabulani means “rejoice” in Zulu. Naledi means “star” in Sotho. Orlando, I learned, was named after a former mayor – Edwin Orlando Leake – who chaired the Native Affairs Committee in the 1920s. These names are more than administrative; they carry memory, pride, and resistance. 

Then there’s Tsotsi Taal, or Isicamtho – a township slang that blends Zulu, Sotho, Tswana, English, Afrikaans, and more. It began as a sort of street argot but grew into a full-fledged youth language, especially after the 1976 uprisings, when Afrikaans became associated with the apartheid regime. Isicamtho became a form of defiance – reclaiming voice, rejecting the language of power, and building a shared identity in its place. It’s still evolving, still alive in Soweto, especially among younger speakers. Some of these themes echoed in an interview with a restaurant manager in Parkhurst, one of Johannesburg’s more gentrified neighborhoods. He runs an Indian restaurant, staffed mostly by South Africans of other backgrounds (he himself is Indian). The menu was in English, naturally – it’s a trendy area, and English performs a particular kind of cosmopolitanism in spaces like that. Nothing out of place, just another small clue about how language meets audience, geography, and economic aspiration. Of course, there are the food words that survive and thrive: kota, for example. A township classic made from a quarter loaf of bread filled with fries, sausage, cheese, egg, and sauce. The name itself – kota – comes from that quarter-loaf. It’s a delicious little reminder that language, like food, is always evolving in the street, in homes, in the everyday.

Hello from Qatar!

It’s been a while since my last post – I wanted to get one uploaded before leaving South Africa but interviews, exploring, and packing for this 22-hour journey (of which I’m currently in the middle) caught up to me. 

I’m writing this blog post from the airport in Doha, as I have a 3-hour layover here before I hop on a flight to Singapore. Landing in Doha, where my family lives and where I graduated high school, was definitely more surreal than I expected it to be – as I stepped out of the plane and onto the tarmac to await a shuttle bus at around 10pm Doha time, I was greeted by the familiarity of warm, humid summer air and the soft yellow glow of the city’s skyline in the distance. Everything from the Qatar Airways boarding music to the selection of films onboard felt familiar, so it is definitely strange to be merely passing through here for a few hours. 

An example of bilingual signage in the Doha airport, which, in part, inspired this project

As for Joburg, I arrived last Wednesday afternoon and had my first interview on Thursday. This interviewee was the marketing manager for Ditsong: Museums of South Africa, an amalgamation of eight museums in Pretoria and Johannesburg. Their offices in Pretoria – where we met – are about an hour away from where I was staying, so I decided to make a day trip out of the meeting. Before the interview, I was able to visit Ditsong’s Museum of Natural History, which gave me some good signage material and a better sense of the style of Ditsong’s exhibitions. My contact welcomed me with a beautiful spread of coffee, juice, and scones in the sunny courtyard behind Ditsong’s administrative office, which was also connected to the garden of their Kruger Museum. She and two of the women who work in her office also gave me a gift – a hat and a mug, each featuring Ditsong’s logo. It was such a warm welcome and there was so much to talk about that I ended up staying there for 3 hours! Since I was in Pretoria, I wanted to visit both Freedom Park and the Voortrekker Monument after the interview, but I was only able to make it to the first before sunset, when I embarked on the hour-long return to my hostel. In the following days, I was also able to talk to a sociolinguist, a local restaurant owner, and a tour guide. More about these conversations and other Joburg findings in the next post. 

Since then, my week has been filled with a mix of sightseeing, going to various museums, subsequent interviews, and staying up late playing card games and sharing pizza with my hostelmates. This has been my favorite hostel so far. One night, we held a braai (the South African version of grilling/barbecue) in honor of someone’s last night in Joburg, turning the simple meal into a warm farewell – my first time trying ostrich (which tastes like a mix between chicken and beef)! Also, every morning at around 11 am, a local man would drop by selling amagwinya for R2 each – South African fried dough balls, made by his wife. They were delicious and instantly took me back to the oliebollen I used to enjoy living in the Netherlands. Those little tastes brought a surprising comfort amid the constant change.

Amagwinya

Braai!

I visited the Apartheid Museum and Constitution Hill, both of which give an amazingly vivid depiction of life under apartheid and the conditions under which political prisoners lived. While visiting Constitution Hill, I was able to walk into the cells in which Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela were held, and the Apartheid Museum had a lengthy exhibition dedicated to telling the story of Mandela’s life. This is what is given to you when purchasing a ticket to the Apartheid Museum:

The slip of paper given to me reads, “Your ticket to the museum has randomly classified you as either ‘white’ or ‘non-white.’ Use the entrance to the museum indicated on the ticket.”

This is the entrance to the museum:

From the very first step, this museum created an incredible educational and emotional impact. Behind the revolving doors, signs from the apartheid era are also showcased (in English and Afrikaans). 

On Sunday I walked the grounds of the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens, and on Monday I went on a biking tour of Soweto. Soweto, its name an abbreviation of South Western Townships, is an area of Joburg that became an epicenter of the fight against the apartheid state in the 1950s. It also is home to Vilakazi Street, the only street in the world to have housed two Nobel Peace Prize winners – Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and Desmond Mpilo Tutu. Mandela’s former residence has now been turned into a museum, so I was able to go inside and look around. Soweto is also where Trevor Noah is from!

Mandela House outside…

…and inside!

Kota, a popular South African street food that gets its name from the quarter (kota) loaf of bread stuffed with chips, sausage, and sauces

As I sit here in Doha, between continents and places I’ve called home, I’m still processing all that the past week in Johannesburg held – conversations, stories, histories, and late-night hostel laughter. A week was barely enough to scratch the surface of a city so layered in history, energy, and lived experiences. I’ll be sharing more soon from Singapore, including a post with some of the research insights from my time in Joburg.

…And the aforementioned Tuesday is already upon us.

I did not, as I had previously planned, visit Table Mountain today – instead, I spent all day yesterday on a 9-hour tour that took me to numerous landmarks (including Table Mountain) around the Cape Peninsula! Expecting a van or bus of some sort, you can imagine my surprise when a cheerful, friendly Albert (our driver-guide) picked me up at my hostel in a tiny four seater yesterday at 8am, reaching across to the passenger’s seat to pop open the door for me. I had been in contact with him about pick up time and expectations, and he explained that since we would only be four people total on the tour this morning due to one family rescheduling, they had instructed him to take one of the cars used for private tours from the depot. Amused, I hopped in, and after picking up a middle-aged couple from a hotel around the corner and exchanging introductions, the four of us were off to our first stop. 

Albert, despite being originally from the Congo, was an incredibly knowledgeable and a wonderful guide around Cape Town. From connecting a bluetooth headset to the car speaker so that we could all hear his commentary (in no way necessary given the size of our car), to stopping for us at every gorgeous viewpoint along the coast, to being my own personal photographer and instructing me on how to pose at each location, he made the day super fun and educational. From the center of the city we drove south to Muizenberg Beach, then headed West to Boulders Beach to see a colony of African penguins, then continued down to the Cape of Good Hope park and Cape Point, circled back up behind Table Mountain on Chapman’s Peak Drive, and finished with a stop at Table Mountain. The views and natural beauty were incredible, especially from the Cape Point lighthouse and the scenic drive along the coast. I didn’t see much from the top of Table Mountain as it was quite foggy, but I definitely got my fair share of amazing views elsewhere, including a wild ostrich spotting on the side of the road. 

The tour was a great way to experience all of these landmarks, as many of them are only accessible by car and it is not always advisable to go alone, despite them being tourist hotspots. Many people have told me I came to South Africa at the wrong time of year (during the winter months), but despite the rain occasionally preventing some exploring, I have really enjoyed the weather and manageable crowds.

V&A Waterfront

Kirstenbosch

I’ve visited a few museums (the Iziko Bo-Kaap and Slave Lodge Museums, as well as the District 6 Museum), walked along the V&A Waterfront, and explored the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens – so beautiful. Unfortunately, the ferry to Robben Island – where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 of the 27 years he was imprisoned – was closed for maintenance and will remain so until September. I did manage to stumble upon the Cape Town qualifiers for the Red Bull Dance Your Style international street dance competition while I was walking along the Waterfront, so I sat in the crowd to watch that for a while. One of these dancers might go on to represent South Africa at the global finals in LA later this year!

I met virtually with another scholar from the University of Cape Town on Friday whose work focuses on decolonization and education, and she shared some very interesting insights that echoed my own experiences. Despite her willingness to talk to me, she shared that South Africa (and the African continent as a whole) has a complicated relationship with research, especially research surrounding people, culture, and – adjacently – languages; the land whose natural beauty, food, and culture I find myself enjoying has, obviously, a history of colonization, oppression, and violence on many fronts, and the legacy of such forces is apparent in the way that Cape Town is still very socially and economically segregated today. She remarked that the process of researchers coming here to study race, religion, languages, etc., can be, for people living here, a process of violence, as it involves reliving or unearthing generational traumas and experiences. This is exacerbated when researchers themselves are foreigners, as the so-called ‘findings’ are often then used to create a narrative that fits the researcher’s goals – and, not to mention, published outside of Africa, in a way recreating dynamics that define the area’s historical past. She explained that for these reasons, people might be hesitant or unwilling to speak with me about my research, which is something I have definitely come across. It’s something I didn’t think to consider while planning my project but am grateful to have learned from her. I also realize that perspectives like this are only something you can learn from being here, and it informs how I want to write about my time in South Africa. 

I’m very curious to visit Johannesburg, which is generally considered more racially and culturally mixed than Cape Town. I’ll be meeting with a representative from Ditsong Museums, an amalgamation of museums in Pretoria and Johannesburg, within my first few days of being there. I leave for Joburg tomorrow, so here are some reflections from my time in Cape Town: 

• Most public signage in Cape Town, especially in the city center, is in English only, even though a wide variety of languages are spoken throughout the city. In areas like Muizenberg, signage is more likely to be bilingual or trilingual, typically in English, Afrikaans, and occasionally Xhosa. Whenever multiple languages are used, it’s almost always these three – a reflection of historical language policy and present-day demographics (see to right).
• A notable pattern is that Xhosa translations often appear only for the prohibitive parts of signs – for example, “No Swimming” might be translated into Xhosa, while the rest of the information is left in English. This raises uncomfortable questions about whose access is prioritized and how language choices may unintentionally frame certain groups as needing to be policed rather than informed. Similarly, crucial safety signage like wet floor warnings is often in English only. In a few cases, I’ve seen the word “Qaphela” (Zulu for “attention”) appear, which stood out to me – especially because I’ve been noticing similar inconsistencies in wet floor signs across the different (rainy) places I’ve visited so far (see below).
  

  Cardiff (English, Welsh)

  

  Cape Town (English, Zulu)

• In the conversation with my contact in Muizenberg, she told me that Xhosa and Zulu are mutually intelligible and should really be considered dialects of the same language. According to her, the split between them was largely colonial – a way of dividing groups artificially by drawing new linguistic boundaries. She said the difference between Zulu and Xhosa is less than the accent difference between Scottish and Welsh speakers of English. When I mentioned how people in Wales sometimes physically correct bad Welsh signage by writing over it with a marker or sticker, she laughed and said that kind of informal language activism doesn’t really happen here – at least not that she’s seen.
• That same scholar has been actively pushing for better signage in Muizenberg, and some improvements have come as a direct result of her complaints. Many of the poorly translated signs around Cape Town stem from one-time translation requests that aren’t proofread or updated – often due to lack of funding or attention. One example she mentioned was a beach sign that was supposed to say “No swimming” but ended up with a message closer to “Bring your food and swim here,” completely reversing the intended meaning.
• The City of Cape Town’s official logo is trilingual (English, Xhosa, Afrikaans), and public institutions like the Muizenberg clinic generally use trilingual signage – though not in integrated formats. Instead, information tends to be printed three times, once in each language. Street signs, on the other hand, are mostly just place names – often Dutch-influenced or an Afrikaans word – and rarely offer language-specific information. Very occasionally, you might see English words like “Way” with Afrikaans equivalents like “Wag” underneath, but this is rare and inconsistent.
• Welcome signs tend to be the most multilingual, often displaying many languages in a word-cloud-style layout, similar to what I observed in parts of Wales. Museums, however, are surprisingly English-dominant. At the Iziko Slave Lodge, for instance, even when signage includes multilingual headings (often for exhibition titles or themes), the actual descriptive content is typically in English only. On the top floor – which was unexpectedly focused on Ancient Egypt – this meant that non-English speakers could understand what the exhibit was about, but not actually engage with the full text, as if the appearance of inclusivity was prioritized over actual access.

Finally, some of my favorite signs from this week:

See you in Joburg!

Hello from South Africa! I landed in Cape Town on Wednesday morning, and since then, most of my time has been spent sheltering from the rain. It was mostly clear on the day I arrived, but we had a few storm warnings today, and it’s supposed to keep raining until Tuesday. Oh, the joys of Southern Hemisphere winter! Luckily, my hostel has an indoor work room, so I’ve spent lots of my time working on my photo organization system and writing out my interview notes. 

I did have a wonderful time in Muizenberg yesterday, though, where I met a University of Cape Town lecturer over coffee. Muizenberg is a lovely coastal town around 30 minutes south of Cape Town’s city center, and it becomes a very popular surf spot in the summer. My contact was kind enough to show me around after our meeting, pointing out interesting signage and taking me along the beautiful shoreline to Rhodes Cottage, a house turned national monument and the place where Cecil Rhodes spent his final days. So far, the signage in Cape Town has been largely only in English, with some signs in Muizenberg showcasing English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa. My interviewee is part of the African Languages department at UCT and speaks Xhosa, so I asked her to teach me the different click consonants of the language. The X click, one of three in the Xhosa language, is lateral, made by pulling the tongue away from the side of the mouth. I may need some practice, but I can now say the name of the Xhosa language correctly!

Rhodes Cottage

A large part of my blog posts from Wales detailed all the traveling I did, so below are some of the most interesting research findings from my time in Cardiff and surroundings. As a reminder, my study is about minority and indigenous language revitalization with a focus on signage. While half of my time is spent in interviews and meetings, learning from scholars and other members of the community about the history and use of these languages, the other half is spent documenting the linguistic landscape around me – taking photos of any and all visual language, including street signs, place names, advertisements, warning signs, museum placards, graffiti, and everything in between. 

• I met with my interviewee from the office of the Welsh Language Commissioner at the Wales Millennium Centre (WMC), which is Wales’ national arts center and is located in Cardiff Bay. The WMC is a popular venue for opera, ballet, musicals, and other performance arts, and it also features a co-working space, café, and gift shop on the ground floor. The building’s architecture supposedly reflects both the geographic and industrial history of Cardiff, drawing inspiration from the country’s seaside cliffs and history of steel production. 
• The facade of the building features a bilingual poem by Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis that, in its entirety, reads: “Creu Gwir Fel Gwydr o Ffwrnais Awen | In These Stones Horizons Sing.” 

Wales Millennium Centre

• It is interesting to note, as I learned from my interlocutor, that the English translation of the poem is by no means literal – in fact, the Welsh reads something more like “creating truth like glass from the furnace of inspiration.” 
• The café on the ground floor is called Ffwrnais (meaning furnace), alluding to Cardiff’s history of mining and coal exportation and drawing from the poem.
• As I discussed with another interviewee from Cardiff University, poetry is one of the least accessible forms of language, and according to him, this inscription is a prime example of bilingualism in Wales. With its use of figurative language and obscurity, poetry isn’t exactly a form of language you would expect a beginner learner (or a child, for that matter) to necessarily understand. It requires a certain level of linguistic sophistication to access. On top of that, in the case of this bilingual poem, the English is much more accessible than the Welsh; the English translation is a much simpler sentence, and therefore meaning is more accessible to English speakers than to Welsh speakers. Only bilingual speakers would know that it is a misleading translation and simplification; English speakers who do not speak Welsh (like myself) would assume that the Welsh must say the same thing as the English, and in the process, we lose the original meaning and significance involving Cardiff Bay’s industrial history. The use of glass within each letter, a possible allusion to the Welsh poem, is also an observation lost to those without access to the Welsh meaning. 
• That same interviewee from Cardiff University also delved into some public attitudes towards the Cardiff Bay area – particularly, some hold criticism of this area because it has become very linguistically homogenized. Historically, the area was a cosmopolitan trade hub, with mariners from all over the world settling down in Cardiff and working at the docks. This legacy still lives on in the Somali, Yemeni, and Greek communities around the bay. So, although many signs feature English and Welsh, there is a sentiment that even this overlooks and ignores the true multilingual history of the area – an interesting angle I hadn’t thought of.
• Cymraeg 2050 (Wales 2050) is the name of the Welsh language action plan that outlines a strategy to reach 1 million speakers of Welsh by 2050. A secondary target is to increase the percentage of the population proficient in Welsh from 10% (in 2015) to 20% by 2050. As I noted in a previous blog post, Cardiff has a high number but low density of Welsh speakers. Two of my interviewees noted that about 20% of the people on their streets are Welsh speakers. However, they believe that this is mostly thanks to children who are learning Welsh in school, not necessarily attributed to adults. My interviewee from the office of the WLC noted that recent legislation was passed with the aim of elementary students developing oral skills in Welsh equivalent to the B2 level in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) – an upper intermediate level. Welsh is taught in all schools in Wales, however, the degree to which it is taught and used depends on the medium of instruction; Welsh-medium schools will use Welsh as the primary language, whereas in English-medium schools, it is taught as a second language. 
• While the Welsh Language Commissioner (WLC) publishes a public list of standardized Welsh place names, local authorities retain the power to decide whether to adopt them. The WLC’s advisory panel – composed of specialists in place-names and Welsh orthography – follows specific guidelines to recommend a standard form when a place, such as a rural town, may have five or six legitimate spellings. Since only one orthography can appear on signage, the panel selects a preferred version and sends it to the relevant authorities. Initially, this process occurred privately between the WLC and local governments. However, in 2018, the WLC began publishing its recommendations publicly, which significantly increased local authority engagement. Once made public, the recommendations gained weight – not just as internal suggestions, but as resources accessible to the broader public, raising the stakes of standardization decisions.
• An interesting dilemma arises with naming topographical features in rural Wales. Visiting hikers and climbers often assign new names to peaks or landmarks – names that may be in English, non-Welsh, or even Welsh but not the original local term. These imposed names can be unintentionally disrespectful, contributing to the erasure of existing place-names held by local farmers and residents. The issue is further complicated by differing relationships to the land: where a farmer sees terrain to work, a hiker sees a peak to conquer. These contrasting perspectives shape the kinds of names given. Since place-names reflect how people relate to and use the land, such discrepancies carry cultural weight. The challenge becomes particularly pronounced when attempting to assign an “official” name – whose history, language, and worldview should it reflect?

Some reflections from my visits to some museums: 

• There is a consistent use of bilingual signage – Welsh almost always appears first, either on top or to the left. It’s a clear, deliberate choice, and one that stood out after seeing some monolingual English signs elsewhere in the city. In particular, warning signs – like “In the event of fire” notices – tend to be in English only, even in spaces that otherwise make an effort to include Welsh. I’ve started spotting more bilingual warnings recently, but the inconsistency is hard to ignore. Inside the exhibits, there’s also a noticeable variation in how both languages are presented. Sometimes they share the same font, color, and size; other times one is bolded, italicized, or completely different in style. There doesn’t seem to be a consistent visual standard, which subtly changes the way the two languages relate to each other on the sign – who gets emphasis, who blends in. Even the video exhibits reflect these dynamics. Rather than subtitling, the showings alternate between Welsh and English versions. It’s a creative solution, but it does mean you either catch the version you understand, or you don’t. I also couldn’t help but notice that the English narrator had an English accent – not Welsh. It’s a small thing, but it speaks to how authority and “neutrality” are still often linked to English, even in bilingual contexts. Though I’m focusing on visual language, I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens when there isn’t any visible language, like when information is only conveyed through sound. Those absences are meaningful too. On a related note, I started to notice all the little overlaps between Welsh and English – words like coffi/coffee, deinosor/dinosaur, lifft/lift. There are so many homonyms and borrowings that pop up in signage and speech.

Although this has been a lengthy blog post, I have much more to say and write about from my two short weeks in Cardiff, not to mention everything I’ve already learned and experienced in just two days in Cape Town. I’m hoping to go to some museums tomorrow (a good rainy day activity) and take advantage of the clearer weather on Tuesday and visit Table Mountain! 

Until then,

Maya