Our soul is unchangeable. In some cultures and philosophies, eternal. The way humans interact is through language. Some might say it is a way of revealing our soul. But does the image of the soul change if the language we use is different?
Growing up in a small country- not so much a melting pot of cultures itself but blended at borders and since borders are always close, so are foreign cultures- I have been acquainted with foreign languages most of my life. Although I spoke English (or at least attempted to) since my first year in the education process and later on started learning a few others, I was restricted in them. Since my vocabulary was significantly poorer in comparison to the one in my mother's tongue, there was only a limited amount of thoughts I could have in it. As time went by, the amount of thoughts grew, but they were different from the thoughts I had in Slovene. Perhaps fresher is the word. There was also freshness in the way I expressed those thoughts. People I was talking to in those languages said it seemed as if my personality changed each time I switched between them. Would their idea of me be the same if I used another language?
Others face similar thoughts. Among many, people living in bilingual, trilingual countries. Maybe people who lived in Yugoslavia. Did intercultural couples faced troubles because their souls changed shapes and images? Did ‘interlingual’ friends create relationships, shallower from those that were conducted in one language? Did people, studying in another country, lose their sense of social responsibility? Probably not. During their childhood, maybe. What I perhaps forgot to add was, this changes when you grow up. You improve in foreign language, you become consistent.
You learn your soul and personality is something that stays with you no matter what country you travel to. You are presentable in every language, thick accent or native speaker.