French is a language of love, some say. An elite language that can turn even the crudest of insults into poetry. Va te faire foutre, mon chéri <3 To me, French is a language of culture, as opposed to status. Rich and poor, young and old, Francophones alike have a piece of themselves into their language. My name, while Arabic by meaning, is in fact written with French spelling and of which has led to misconceptions with pronunciation (I’ve had my fair share of Hab-bows). My French was always second place to my Arabic. My Arabic was the family member who came to visit every other week, my French visited only once a month. My Arabic gave everyone nicknames and spoke to the young folks with slang, my French barely remembered everyone’s name and didn’t even know the word for “bro”. My Arabic was the artist, my French was the muse, but who says a muse isn’t any more important than the artist? A muse is something that speaks to you, someone who knows you. Muses reconnect you to your roots no matter how much you change within the process. My muse is Chadian. My muse speaks French. My muse may not be as popular as my Sudanese Arabic artist but my muse gets her flowers. Flowers that are grown by patience and appreciation. 

I believe my appreciation of French grew more as I learned Arabic. French to me was the best of both worlds in terms of a Latin based language more commonly spoken within English communities. Arabic was my personal while French was public, it was something to relate and connect over with strangers. Learning French meant having to adjust to a new culture of Francophone-centrism, this meant engaging with French language shows, songs, movies, games, jokes, and more. I can recall this one instance where I was listening to a bunch of 90s European electro music. Most were from either the Netherlands, England, or Germany but I’ve managed to encounter a cover of a Belgian singer. Sœur Sourire or “The Singing Nun” in English speaking countries was singer-songwriter and former member of the Belgian Catholic Dominican Order. This part of the story wasn’t what was most interesting to me, it was the content of one of her infamous songs, “Dominique”, which details a story about Spanish-born priest Saint Dominic. The main chorus goes like this, 

“Dominique -nique -nique. S’en allait tout simplement. Routier, pauvre et chantant.

En tous chemins, en tous lieux. Il ne parle que du Bon Dieu Il ne parle que du Bon Dieu”

As I recited the lyrics to this song my mouth felt free, the verses came out of my mouth despite my amateur French speaking skills. Memorizing these lyrics in itself felt like winning the world’s most important medal in the word, even when in reality it was closer to a participation trophy. It wasn’t a battle trying to work my Americanized tongue to French vowels with this one, it felt like a piece of the Francophone experience. Moments like this reminded me that French is as real to me as Arabic is, one can’t exist without the other one as they intrinsically define me.