Autistic Bilingualism

I’m bilingual

My first language is English. It’s what my parents spoke at home, my first words and thoughts were English. I learnt Welsh when I went to Ysgol Feithryn (nursery). I would have been about two. It carried on into a first-language Welsh primary school, and then a secondary school where English was not permitted even in the playground (making it the ironically rebellious act). I did my GCSEs in Welsh. I learned French and German and a smattering of Japanese through the medium of Welsh.

I remember a teacher once saying to me (and time passed means it will be a clumsy paraphrase), “It must be so hard for all you second-language-Welsh pupils, you have to translate everything in your head. You see a table, you think ‘table’ and then look for the Welsh word, ‘bwrdd’ and then you can say it.”

I looked blankly at her. I didn’t even disagree. It was a throw away comment to a fourteen year old about how her world behaved.

I do wonder how many of my processing issues were mis-attributed to language issues. When I paused to work out meaning, did they think I was pausing to translate? When I said something strange, or misunderstood things, was it put down to being too anglicised instead? It would explain why I was yo-yo’d around different sets for Welsh. One teacher was determined I was on a parr with the best of the year, but no one else could see it. Perhaps she saw past my traits to the language beneath them?

You see, I don’t “translate” in my head. I’m bilingual. I see a table, and it is instantly both a table and a bwrdd. It is both. It is not one above the other. I would reach for the word in the language I needed. Why would I take a route through another? Why would I go the long way around?

English is easier for me, because I use it more. That would change if I swapped for a time, but because it’s the language I reach for, it’s the language that fits me best. The more I choose one over the other, the slower I become. Lets not forget that I’m also putting in the work from an autistic point of view. When I speak Welsh I feel slow, I feel tired, I feel like I’m not expressing what I really mean, I’m reduced.

Not because it’s Welsh – Welsh is far more logical than English, it’s far more lyrical and flowing, it’s so much clearer in itself – but because I don’t have the energy to use it more.

I’m bilingual you see. Bilingual in language, but I’m only Second-Language Non-autistic. I will never be bilingual in your world. I will always have to put the effort in to translate you.

This morning someone told me they were “Riveted” by my latest poem. My autism pictured a ship’s rivets. It placed them around a person. I then translated that into its non-autistic meaning, they were captivated by it, they loved it, it held them.

I have these little pictures for so many things. Someone wears their heart on their sleeve? No problem: Picture an actual heart on a sleeve, hearts symbolise love and feelings, it’s outside their body, everyone can see it. Translated it means they show everyone how they feel.

In some ways I’m closer to bilingual; I know that if you’re smiley then it’s likely you are happy. I don’t need to think “There’s a smile. What’s a smile? A smile is happiness”. The answer is there. I have studied expressions in great detail. I have become fluent in them. I practise every day. It’s only when I’m tired or stressed, that the difference between fluent and automatic becomes apparent.

No matter how good you are at speaking another language, it can feel a relief when you get to speak your mother-tongue. Autism is my first language, it is a conversation without small talk, a need to move and avoid eye contact whilst connecting – not to avoid the connection, but to connect better. I have learned your ways but they will always be a performance, they will always need me to work hard.

I am bilingual; Welsh and English. I don’t think I will ever be as capable in non-autistic, but then, there are few non-autistics willing to learn autistic, and I want to connect.

And they say we are the ones with the communication issues.

Published by Rhi

90 thoughts on “Autistic Bilingualism”

      1. The same thing applies more or less to accents, tone of voice and anything else that may be triggering or intrusive-thought generating. Especially for nature docusmentaries! There was a nice one called Wild France, I seem to remember. Lots of inspiring wildlife and nature over there that we just don’t have over here (e.g. no Alpine-level pasture, Mediterranean climate or large forests for the most part).

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  5. How much easier it would be if we only could meet half way… Or at least give the person we talk to the room and comfort zon they need, there are so many people who don’t get the connection they want/need because the studder, have autism, or some other “disability” that make NT persons more or less ignore them. Or worse, think they are stupid. The more I learn the more I think that it’s us, the NT:s, that are having a ‎disability. We have big troubles with everything that dosen’t fit nicely in a box!

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    1. It’s true! The more I look into things, the more it seems to be that NTs struggle most with “Theory of Mind” and assuming other people think the same as them. Not because they’re less able, but because they’re less likely to have had to push themselves to do it and far more likely to have agreement in their social group.

      I’m rather fond of all my NTs, they just need a bit of patience at times 😉😄💐

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  8. I’m a professional translator and sociolinguist and this piece was FASCINATING and beautifully-written! Thank you so much for sharing; it has really opened my eyes. I will be sharing it with my colleagues who work with children on the spectrum and I hope it will be a great resource for them when learning how to connect.

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        1. That is so amazing to hear! I don’t get a chance to write as often as I once did, but I’m so glad I have written what I have.

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  9. I love bilingualism as a metaphor. Sadly, I am a pedantic semi-retired linguist and so I *have to* point out that what that teacher described is somebody who has only just begun acquiring a new language. What you describe otoh is the normal bilingual experience.
    Interestingly, that teacher’s opinion mirrors the “autism is a horrible disease” pov, possibly due to the “condescending while clueless” factor they have in common.

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    1. Absolutely, her view was completely misunderstanding bilingualism. I don’t for a second think that anyone else with more than one language “translates”. None of my other bilingual classmates did that either.

      The comparison is between my bilingualism in language and my lack of it in communication. I will always be a learner when it comes to non-autistic communication, it is not something I can learn to be bilingual in.

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      1. Again, I liked the metaphor, it really works for me. Something I could really use if I wanted to explain myself.
        Pedantry is when you have to point out details even when you have no reason to assume that other people need to be told 😉
        I think I was extra annoyed because I remember bilingual kids getting a lot of (often racist) sh*t from people who don’t get language acquisition. A bit like us neurodivergent folk, really.

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  10. Pingback: Autistic Bilingualism – Fire Bright Star Soul

  12. Interesting post, I love thoughts about language, it fascinates me. I don’t think I can claim to be bilingual, I grew up speaking German and started to learn English at school when I was ten, like everyone else. However in the meantime I have heard, read, spoken so much English, and lived in England for many years, I stopped translating in my head a long time ago. Both languages feel the same to me in terms of ease of use. I do speak slowly and hesitate because I’m always searching for precisely the right word, but I do that in both languages.
    I also get all these little pictures in my head, but there, too, it doesn’t feel to me like I have to translate, from word to picture and back again – it’s completely automatic.

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  14. i’m multilingual too. in daily life i use mostly english which is my 3rd language – and it’s tiring. i’m a fast listener etc and have retrained my brain to take audio in first.
    but there are always those tired days. when i struggle to decipher stupid language expressions to what they mean (english is full of senseless expressions)… so the translation of words to what people are trying to say (all processing without translating to other languages) is exactly that nonnative fluency struggle.
    add the same to body language, facial expressions and tone of voice. it’s alot of decoding work because i speak none of those natively either. we’re expected to be able to decipher a huge number of facial expressions and read between the lines of “how” someone says something.
    wirhout people understanding that speaking at all is a hassle too, so when a lot of when you try to speak gets lost because you fail with the collateral conmunication etc it sucks.

    i never do the translation thibg between people laguages i know, except as a silent mental stim (among with other thigs i do to words in my head).
    i try to explain to people my “native” way of thinking is in images/concepts instead of a language. a few get it. if i’m by myself i may talk to my animals and will ve exposed to languages by listening to books. but i can still revert to my image-thinking. it’s a lot more efficient than word-thinking.

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    1. English is definitely the most ridiculous of all the languages 😄

      I love the idea that your “native” language is imagery. Beautiful. Thank you 💐

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    2. That is so blessed awesome! When I lived in Peru and was learning Spanish, I got good enough to ‘think’ in concepts, not English, and then speak in Spanish, so I could navigate the language for when I didn’t know a term.

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    3. I got diagnosed yesterday…
      And this is the first time I see someone describing my thought process.
      Still not sure though if it’s the same though. Too many new things for me, but conceps usually flow in my mind forming shapes and images, connecting, representing and mirroring what words would describe.
      In that way I feel like a much faster, kind of chaotic quantum computer. Sometimes I get answers in funny ways and sometimes I dont even know how I got to the answer, but I did.
      Does that sound like what you experience?

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      1. Yes. It’s sounds very familiar. I don’t work in a “linear” way, my thought processes spiral out, covering a vast area. I’ve heard it said that we can often be misunderstood because what we say is “Because of A we need to do C” without explaining the route to C through B, because that’s too big for a few words. (Hope that makes some sense too!)

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        1. I often get frustrated with our communication options.
          Words can transmit so little. I start thinking of all the possible misunderstandings and trying to edit my thoughs/explanation in a way that makes the idea scale and flow correctly, like “Oops, I have to say A before B, but not forget C, while presenting D as an option”, but then I realize it got too big and no one will care enough to listen to the whole thing or actually try to understand. So I end up feeling like I just did a lot of useless work, ’cause, you know, I’m an island, full of treasures I can’t ever share.
          Not to mention when it gets so big I forget what I was thinking/talking about to begin with.
          I like words better as art than as a communication tool. I like it when it shades itself in mistery, provoking you to unfold the idea before it can surprise you, or when someone’s able to convey a feeling you didn’t even know you had.
          Do any of these ever happen to you or cross your mind? I’m very curious to know how much I have or not have in common with people like us.

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          1. You have described a lot of my thought processes perfectly. Thinking through all variables can make a simple question like, “What would you like to drink?” A nightmare. What do they mean? Alcoholic, hot, soft? What if I ask for a hot drink and they just meant water. What are the social connotations of accepting each one? What if they don’t have what I say I want, will they be offended and think I’m being awkward?

            In the U.K. tea is usually a safe answer, but I’ve often just said, “No I’m fine”, even when thirsty, just because the thinking isn’t worth it. I try to have as many pre-thought-through stock answers ready for such moments as possible.

            When I’ve told people that they’ll just say, “Why don’t you just ask what they have?” Which is fine if I’ve previously thought it through, but that question also takes thought and if I’m stressed then it’s easier to not look at variables.

            I like words for their musicality, and I like words for imparting knowledge. I get frustrated by all the things you’re supposed to say surrounding the imparting of knowledge. They take time and effort and are not for me!

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            1. “pre-thought-through stock answers” is funny.
              Sometimes I explain something to someone (cause I like to explain a lot of stuff), and they’ll say something like “wow, you explainded that so well, you’re talented”. Sure.. what they don’t know is that I have explained and reexplained that in hipothetical situations in my mind over and over again, more times than I can count. I have gone though all possible paths, finding dead ends, overextensions, broken bridges and mapped out the entire area. In the end, I wont just know how to do it, but how not to do it.
              I think true understanding of a concept requires knowing not only the right way, but all the ways, including the wrongs ones.
              Make me a question I’m not ready to answer and you’ll see me crumble, implode into that “talent”.
              Funny how the effort to overcome what is very difficult can sometimes make people think I’m actually really good at that.
              Being from Brazil, UK seems like a really exotic place to me. Which makes me think, we’re really all just humans, no matter what language you speak, what you like, what conventions you’re used to. There’s problably some guy from Vietnam or Africa who would share a lot of our thoughts.

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              1. Brazil seems really exotic to me! Yes, it’s amazing that brought up in different cultures, with different languages and different systems, you end up with such amazing similarities when you find two people with the same neurotype. Quite amazing.

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      2. very much so.
        inner mode = that image based thing. reading, listening or speaking = have to switch to “language mode” then find the correct switch for the desired language.
        when others were asking about what language i think in many years ago i sort of discovered others don’t seem to have the image thinking. it’s like NTs especially if they only know one language are then reduced to do “language only thinking” in a way. (and it makes it inpossible to describe others “what you are thinking” or how thought loops interact)

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  16. “And they say we are the ones with the communication issues” — that sums it up. Mildly autistic myself. Took me years to program my head to model “normal” communication and expressions of empathy. (For instance, even for this little comment, I had to double/triple-check analytically, just to ensure it doesn’t include expressions or words that aren’t supposed to be here.) Personally bilingual/trilingual as well. A friend I knew for five years was recently astonished to read an essay I wrote in Chinese — my first language. Anyway, glad to have bumped into you here.

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  18. Thank you for this insight into the life of an autistic bilingual! Being a (mostly) monolingual speaker, it’s interesting to see how bilinguals see the world.

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  19. Bilingual by birth (Hungarian/Romanian), polyglot through educational routine exposure and practice, dream in English, count only in Romanian, use Hungarian/English at home, watch French news, comfortable in German and Italian, capable of synchronous trilingual interpreting. All this while Dyslexic and with such Dyscalculia, that I let cashiers count their change out of my hand when I’m too stressed and sensory overloaded…
    Yet, so true, Autism is my first language. Magnificent 👾

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  25. I love this. I have always understood the definition of Autism. I have seen the my friend’s son diagnosed autistic and how he is learning the Russian alphabet at 4 years old, having learned English at 2, but struggles with verbal communication and non literal translations. “I’m bilingual you see. Bilingual in language, but I’m only Second-Language Non-autistic. I will never be bilingual in your world. I will always have to put the effort in to translate you.” This hit me hard. Then your descriptions of pictures for everything, and going about the “long way round” for the translation of expressions and sayings. You have opened my eyes even more than they were before, thank you!

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    1. You are so very welcome. Our natural communication techniques may be different, but that doesn’t mean we can’t meet in the middle and value each other’s ways of doing things. Thank you so much.

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      1. English is my first language. I learned French and Korean young. I have no idea what language I’m speaking or hearing at any given moment. I don’t translate. It just pops in my head as immediately comprehensible. I wonder if I think it’s English? i have no idea. Learning to read, I taught myself each word was a tiny cityscape. This city means “popcorn” that one means “Zeus, god of thunder to the ancient Greeks”. That sort of thing. I also get the pictures! I love them, they make me happy and sometimes I can use them to defuse tense neurotypicals who are sure I’m being dumb on purpose. Thanks again, Rhi.

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        1. I forgot, I can’t speak a language on command, though. I forget nouns, verbs, everything – when asked directly. But this is so about EVERYTHING, not just language. I function best when i’m not aware I’m doing it.

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          1. I know what you mean, it can be easier to find the words when I’ve put my conscious mind elsewhere. I wonder if I function best when not aware.

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  26. Pingback: reBlogs | Autistic bilingualism, Talking to Docs, & the complicated ‘How Are You?’ | American Badass Activists

  27. Ye gods! Today’s teacherly adventure was an all day workshop with a machine gunning instructor on teaching English phonics. It wasn’t new. This was the second time I’ve had it. I’m the departmental expert on it as I use the program daily. As a poet I take English apart constantly, consistently, reassembling the pieces as my own stim for amusement and writing. It also meant that I was completely ON all day. It meant a second cup of coffee and neurons blinking like fluorescent lights. It reminds me of why my daughter says I’m exhausting for her to be around: too much going on unsaid. At this point I’m grateful that age taught me to slow down before I went up like a roman candle, spitting sparks and fire balls, then empty and singed. Living alone now is such a relief: no need to communicate overtly or deal with others. My last room mate made that clear, despite it being a dear friend. Now I can just stare at the trees and listen to what they have to say. Or the birds. Or my cat. Or a book when I need another adventure.

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  30. Reblogged this on delphinemusic and commented:
    This is as if I could have written it myself, also being Welsh… I can’t believe there’s someone else like me in this way out there… Thank you to the author for writing this and saying words that I could not xx 😊

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  31. Beautiful.
    Thank you so much for sharing a part of your mind.
    I got diagnosed yesterday, at 28, so I’m still overwhelmed reprocessing every event in my life.
    But it’s great to learn more.

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    1. It’s a long process, rethinking it all. I’ve found it mostly very healing, but it can be upsetting at times too. Be kind to yourself.

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      1. It’s mostly relief so far.
        Realizing *it* was not my fault. *it* was not wrong, and that it’s ok.
        I now feel more pride than anything else. I feel like this is a banner I can stand by.
        It allows me to like myself. I feel special and unique.

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  33. I am job hunting, and sometimes the applications ask me what languages I know. What if I put down ‘Autistic’ as a language and described myself as fluent? 🙂

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  35. This is how I coach my son to coach those he encounters about how to be with him- I’m a Mac, and you’re a PC. NOTHING that you do will make iOS run on Windows- you can hit the computer, curse at it, wipe the hard drive clean and reload the software, but no amount of cajoling will have iOS run on Windows. Buut… if you respect that a Mac operates as a Mac & a PC as a PC, and find a program that has you, the PC, use operations that MACs understand, like how you can use Google Docs online on a MAC, then you can communicate.

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  36. not directly related to this post, but I was just telling my friend how difficult it is to learn a foreign language as an autistic person. That’s because it’s already often difficult to pronounce words with the correct intonation in our first language, and so much focus is on correct pronunciation when learning a new language. For example, I already pronounce my “R”s in my first language (English) much stronger than most English speakers from my region and I speak in a monotone voice often. That was a problem when studying Japanese, since the “R” is more ambiguous/softer and the teachers wanted us to speak with emphasis/a certain rhythm, which I already have trouble with in my first language. One of my teachers yelled at me so much for that 😦 luckily at least during my last year, a teacher asked me if I spoke that way in English, and I was able to let her that I did; so she didn’t give me such a hard time about it.

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    1. It think it’s certainly something that could be true for monolingual people. Perhaps that’s another reason to teach other languages early – before those patterns are set in stone. I certainly think being bilingual has helped me learn tonality.

      A thought provoking comment. Thank you 💐

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  37. Pingback: Autistic Art – Autism Plaza

  38. Given the Dutch culture has a lot in common with Autistic traits, I want someone who knows about both these things to analyse the Dutch language (it’s apparently a Germanic one related to the non-Latin, Norman-French and Greek components of English). I am not very experienced, but sometimes to me, Dutch sounds like an English speaker talking in some sort of English-type baby language, at least for certain common phrases and words. Especially if I loosen my focus and let my mind drift in a manner similar to visual squinting. I wonder how thinking style, language and culture relate to each other in this context?

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  39. Hallo Rhi,
    I found your blog today (while looking for information on Katherine May’s books), and I haven’t been able to stop reading! So much of what you say is so very recognisable. I’m 51 and received my autism diagnosis a few months ago (my teenage son was diagnosed a few years back and it took all this time and then a year of lockdown for me to finally realise he wasn’t the only one!).

    This post struck a particular chord with me, and I wondered whether you’d come across Damian Milton’s work on the ‘double empathy problem’. Reading about that was such a light bulb moment, and all of a sudden I could see autistic people and NT people as speakers of different languages, both trying to understand each other (usually with the autistic person doing what feels like the bulk of the work, or perhaps that’s just my inner rage gnome going off unreasonably).

    I’m also bilingual (native English speaker, Dutch is my second language), and being autistic in an NT world sometimes feels like only being able to use Dutch as my means of communication. I know I’ll probably never be as fluent as a native, because I simply cannot inhabit the language in the same way as a native speaker. I’m okay with that when it comes to Dutch. I’m still working on being okay with that when it comes to speaking autistic!

    There are so many things that have caught my attention in your posts today! It’s been a joy to come across so much that I recognise. Thank you 😀

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    1. Thank you so much for your lovely comment! I have indeed come across Damian Milton’s work and it makes so much sense! If you haven’t found it yet then have a look at Dr Catherine Crompton’s (I hope I’ve got her name right!) work on how we share information – basically that autistic people communicate as successfully as no autistic people as long as we are with other autistics, but when you mix and match the neurotypes that’s when the communication all gets lost in translation. It’s great stuff.

      We’re not wrong, we’re just different 🙂

      Thank you again for all your kind words, even after all these years I sometimes need reminding how important sharing our thoughts is 🙂

      Rhi

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