Editorial notice: The next is in reply to Wendy Name and Whitney DeVos’s letter to the editor, which itself is in response to the writer’s “Language as Refuge” column within the March 2025 difficulty.

I very a lot admire the suggestions from Wendy Name and Whitney DeVos. It’s at all times pretty to see people participating with what I’ve written and posing their very own ideas and challenges to it. I thank them very a lot for taking the time to learn my work and reply to it.

That mentioned, I used to be considerably mystified to see myself characterised as a supporter of the “hegemonic dominance of English and the shortage of appreciation for minoritized languages,” when the unique premise of my column was exactly to spotlight, discover, and have fun the cultural and historic roots of phrases and ideas from non-English languages. I’d refer the authors to prior columns, the place I have interaction in exactly the sorts of discourses round linguistic hegemony and pluralism that they appear to assume I’m opposite towards. I’d additionally refer them to the many years of labor I’ve accomplished in translated literature, supporting the interpretation and propagation of literatures from dozens of languages into English.

As to my level about artwork, love, and god, maybe I used to be not being clear sufficient? Moderately than making a press release concerning the significance of “Western” concepts (though I notice that, opposite to what Name and DeVos say, these ideas are typically considered common and significantly transcend the Western sphere), my level was that in realizing how misplaced I’d really feel in a language that didn’t embrace these concepts, I used to be in a position to higher admire what a speaker of a language fairly completely different from my very own may really feel on the lack of their very own cherished linguistic concepts.

Moreover, I’m somewhat confused by the animosity towards those that have interaction with Toki Pona, Boontling, and different “argots,” because the authors put it. I believe I’ve made clear that I’m fairly conscious of the distinctions they’re using between what they name a “language” and an “argot”—within the column, I’m going into element discussing Perlin’s in-depth consideration of the “‘vertical village’ of Nepalese dwelling in a high-rise residence constructing in Brooklyn” to debate how essential linguistic preservation is to communities, whereas augmenting Perlin’s work with the concepts of different researchers, corresponding to Suzanne Romaine, Daniel Nettle, and David Crystal.

That mentioned, the dismissal of what individuals discover in expressive techniques like Toki Pona and Boontling is unlucky. Name and DeVos may look to Eisa Davis’s Pulitzer Prize–successful play Bulrusher to see simply how invaluable one thing like Boontling is to actual human beings and human communities. They could additionally look to the 1000’s of individuals whose lives have significantly benefited by getting to interact with Toki Pona and the communities round it. (I’d additionally add that many researchers take into account Toki Pona a helpful language—see, as an example, Sokolova & Makarov 2024 and Kitao 2024.)

Lastly, could I remind them that full-fledged languages usually start as sublanguages. I’d hope that the authors would participate within the spirit of mental curiosity and exploration that they exhort me towards and see simply how a lot these practices have delivered to human beings and their communities. They may be stunned by what they discover.

Oakland, California