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Alfabet/Alphabet
alfabet / alphabet is the record of Sadiqa de Meijer's transition from speaking Dutch to English. Exploring questions of identity, landscape, family, and translation, the essays navigate the shifting cultural currents of language by using an eclectic approach to storytelling. As such, fellow linguistic migrants to anglophone Canada will recognize elements of their experience in alfabet / alphabet, while lifelong English speakers will perceive their mother tongue in a new light.
153 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2020
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About the author
Sadiqa de Meijer
8 books19 followersSadiqa de Meijer is a Canadian poet. Her debut collection, Leaving Howe Island, was a nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry at the 2014 Governor General's Awards and for the 2014 Pat Lowther Award, and her poem "Great Aunt Unmarried" won the CBC's Canada Writes award for poetry in 2012.
She has also published short stories and essays in anthologies and literary magazines.
Born in Amsterdam and raised in Canada, she currently resides in Kingston, Ontario.
She has also published short stories and essays in anthologies and literary magazines.
Born in Amsterdam and raised in Canada, she currently resides in Kingston, Ontario.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 17, 2024
Growing up as a second-generation immigrant, I was always fascinated by the way people’s personalities seemed to shift when they switched languages, how words from other languages validate specific experiences our own language does not, and how words from one’s mother tongue carry incredible nuance. Reading Sadiqa de Meijer’s book brought back all these thoughts with full sensory vividness, along with an abundance of stories both grief-stricken and joyous—a first language can evoke memories, people, and homes gained and lost.
Before I chose to major in English, I thought, “How could I, a child of Chinese immigrants, claim mastery over a language I only occasionally speak at home?” There’s a sense of both freedom and loss as I comfortably write in English to express my innermost thoughts, yet stumble when I try to make out Chinese characters. But even as I palpably feel the vast oceans separating these two languages, my parents were the ones who built a life in one—and then in the midst of it, started anew in another. With the untranslatable words of their mother tongue, parts of them remain unseen here.
“Mother tongue, will you come for your uprooted ones, when our souring, laboured breaths are numbered? Will you be there to ferry us home?”
Working in healthcare now, I feel a vicarious sorrow when I encounter patients who speak a language no one else on the medical team does. There’s a sense of guilt, as a racialized person, of having narrowly escaped being further othered through speaking fluent English. Especially in an environment with an inherent power differential between patient and physician. To have an accent is to be looked down upon, even though it simply means you can speak more than one language, see the world in more ways. English is a language that sounds so one-dimensional when I go abroad—flat and exposed—yet wields so much power in its colonial ubiquity. When I visit China, I feel uncomfortable speaking it, as people look on in envy. What do I represent in those moments? A better life after leaving, or just the illusion of it?
Alfabet / Alphabet speaks to all the qualms I have had with regards to being an exile of a mother tongue, and all the ones I didn’t think of that will now stay with me for a long time. It contains intricate technical and emotional portrayals of Dutch language and culture that I believe will speak to people no matter their background. It recounts the challenging, disorienting, numbing, and eventually fulfilling process of learning a new language. I am thankful to be able to speak Mandarin, though it is broken and there still exists a gulf between me and my relatives. As my partner and I currently try to learn each other’s first languages, I feel frustrated knowing that there are nuances I may never be able to fully appreciate. But as quoted in the book, Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke stated, “(…)once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvellous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”
Before I chose to major in English, I thought, “How could I, a child of Chinese immigrants, claim mastery over a language I only occasionally speak at home?” There’s a sense of both freedom and loss as I comfortably write in English to express my innermost thoughts, yet stumble when I try to make out Chinese characters. But even as I palpably feel the vast oceans separating these two languages, my parents were the ones who built a life in one—and then in the midst of it, started anew in another. With the untranslatable words of their mother tongue, parts of them remain unseen here.
“Mother tongue, will you come for your uprooted ones, when our souring, laboured breaths are numbered? Will you be there to ferry us home?”
Working in healthcare now, I feel a vicarious sorrow when I encounter patients who speak a language no one else on the medical team does. There’s a sense of guilt, as a racialized person, of having narrowly escaped being further othered through speaking fluent English. Especially in an environment with an inherent power differential between patient and physician. To have an accent is to be looked down upon, even though it simply means you can speak more than one language, see the world in more ways. English is a language that sounds so one-dimensional when I go abroad—flat and exposed—yet wields so much power in its colonial ubiquity. When I visit China, I feel uncomfortable speaking it, as people look on in envy. What do I represent in those moments? A better life after leaving, or just the illusion of it?
Alfabet / Alphabet speaks to all the qualms I have had with regards to being an exile of a mother tongue, and all the ones I didn’t think of that will now stay with me for a long time. It contains intricate technical and emotional portrayals of Dutch language and culture that I believe will speak to people no matter their background. It recounts the challenging, disorienting, numbing, and eventually fulfilling process of learning a new language. I am thankful to be able to speak Mandarin, though it is broken and there still exists a gulf between me and my relatives. As my partner and I currently try to learn each other’s first languages, I feel frustrated knowing that there are nuances I may never be able to fully appreciate. But as quoted in the book, Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke stated, “(…)once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvellous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”
July 23, 2022
Beautifully written and very interesting.
December 31, 2021
A very engaging little book with reflections on language(s), meaning, identity, and a lot more. Brilliant! Winner of the 2021 Governor General Award for Nonfiction! Highly recommended for readers who live with and within more than one language and culture.
August 5, 2025
No soy la persona más imparcial para reseñar este libro. Por cómo llegó a mí, era obvio que iba a tenerle un montón de cariño.
Más allá de eso, es un librazo. Sadiqa mezcla lo filosófico con lo político con lo personal y lo poético con una habilidad preciosa. Es generosa, te lleva a su mundo interior y te deja quedarte el tiempo que quieras. Comparte anécdotas de su infancia, de su vida familiar, reflexiones y mil cosas más. Sus imágenes son vívidas y precisas. Nunca estuve en los Países Bajos pero podía imaginarme perfectamente sus aguas y su tierra y sus cúmulos de bicicletas.
Recomendadísima lectura.
Más allá de eso, es un librazo. Sadiqa mezcla lo filosófico con lo político con lo personal y lo poético con una habilidad preciosa. Es generosa, te lleva a su mundo interior y te deja quedarte el tiempo que quieras. Comparte anécdotas de su infancia, de su vida familiar, reflexiones y mil cosas más. Sus imágenes son vívidas y precisas. Nunca estuve en los Países Bajos pero podía imaginarme perfectamente sus aguas y su tierra y sus cúmulos de bicicletas.
Recomendadísima lectura.
February 2, 2022
Beautiful book! prose poem / memoir / extended essay about language, landscape, and sound all packed into one engaging volume. I’m surprised this isn’t more popular!
April 2, 2024
Sometimes poetic, sometimes academic, a memoir of life's adjustments through the lens of language learning.
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June 3, 2022As a multilingual person, this book resonated strongly with me. This book is a treasure of emotional and linguistic intermingling, a fluid expression of identity wrapped up in words, their meanings, their sounds, and how people relate to one another while using said words. Sometimes almost identical words from different express the same ideas, feelings, images, while other times they have conflicting meanings, or concepts that simply do not exist in another language. And yet, they shape a person's identity. I empathize with the author, who realizes that she "is" a different person in each language and dialect.
I love this phrase, "People who speak a language they learned after early childhood live in chronic abstaction." And while I see the truth of it, I think that sometimes those abstractions can be filled in, depending on one's cultural immersion. As the author's experience of travel to her childhood language location after a long time illustrates, linguistics change and evolve. Language is a living, growing thing, and parts of us grow in unexpected ways along with language usage.
I was also fascinated how the transliteration from one language into another of foundational information such as the alphabet, scripture, or poetry can vary so much in nuance and meaning. If you are a multilingual and/or multicultural person, you will find familiarities in this memoir, and much food for thought. I might go so far as to recommend re-reading it after a month or so, and see what new meanings are discovered!
I love this phrase, "People who speak a language they learned after early childhood live in chronic abstaction." And while I see the truth of it, I think that sometimes those abstractions can be filled in, depending on one's cultural immersion. As the author's experience of travel to her childhood language location after a long time illustrates, linguistics change and evolve. Language is a living, growing thing, and parts of us grow in unexpected ways along with language usage.
I was also fascinated how the transliteration from one language into another of foundational information such as the alphabet, scripture, or poetry can vary so much in nuance and meaning. If you are a multilingual and/or multicultural person, you will find familiarities in this memoir, and much food for thought. I might go so far as to recommend re-reading it after a month or so, and see what new meanings are discovered!
January 5, 2021
An important book that expands the genre of memoir and deserves to be widely read and shared. Brilliant, insightful writing that's warm and generous.
July 25, 2021
An ode to language. Beautifully written.
October 4, 2024
alfabet / alphabet: a memoir of a first language by Sadiqa de Meijer was the perfect book to start–and finish–while taking the train from Glasgow to London and then flying back home. This pocketbook of 147 pages chronicled, in 26 essays, the author’s reminiscences and experiences as a child and new immigrant to Canada from the Netherlands. The single-word titles of each chapter began with a different letter of the alphabet and were convenient translations of Dutch and English words which also began with the same letter. Examples are kennis / knowledge and liefde / love. For the record, the sticky letters Q and X were for quarantaine / quarantine and xenofobie / xenophobia. I did find the overall connection to some chapter words to be a bit of a stretch.
I could feel the sudden shock and sadness de Meijer experienced when she first arrived in Canada as a young girl. Her group of friends was suddenly gone, and her beloved environment where she could ride her bike across bridges to explore canals was now transformed into a suburban Scarborough landscape where it was too far and dangerous to ride anywhere.
de Meijer revealed that as a native speaker of Dutch, there were feelings and deep emotions so rooted in her upbringing that she could never translate them into English. Thus Dutch is her innate “feeling” language. Yet as a writer now based in Canada, she admits that “I’m doing what millions of others also have to do: making a life in the other tongue, writing and speaking as if to strike new sparks between English and myself.”
The memoir is poetical, which explains why I needed to cross Great Britain, and then the Atlantic, in order to finish it. de Meijer has been a lover of poetry from a young age and she filled the book with her favourite Dutch poems and provided literal calqued translations for some and attempted to find other translators’ efforts to show the diversity in the art of poetry translation. I was thus immediately reminded of Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language. Whenever I encounter poetry the genre demands multiple rereads, so I always spent extra time going over each poem and mapping the calqued Dutch and English words, or looking at the ways each poet decided to translate certain lines.
December 25, 2021
Beautiful writing. I have liked de Meijer's poetry since a friend introduced me while I was in grad school; only later did I find out that we shared a Dutch background and experience living in Kingston. All this to say, I may be a uniquely resonant audience for some of the themes in this book. Anyway I found it lovely. Bought one for me and one as a Christmas gift for my Dutch immigrant father. Looking forward to hearing what resonates with him.
June 30, 2022
An elegant and interesting book. Sadiqa de Meijer writes in a relatable, unfussy style. Some of the connections she makes between social and linguistic patterns are truly inspired -- she definitely has a unique vantage point and she makes good use of it. Why not a 5 rating? I think it's because at times I found myself wishing she would push a little further.
June 15, 2024
If you love poetry, especially if you translate poetry; if you had to learn English after migrating to that language milieu, especially around age 12; if you are Vlaams or Nederlandsch or are interested in that language or people; if you spoke only their grandparents language around your kids so they would be able to talk with them - you are likely to enjoy this small book. Acute observations of what can be lost in migration as well as some things that can be gained.
February 12, 2025
Knowing Sadiqa makes this an even more special read. This masterpiece is meant to be savoured; speedread and you’ll miss the fabric that weaves linguistic exiles together. “You shoot yourself and live. Is that what happens when you switch languages?” My latent desire to write something impactful is unveiled by this memoir.
November 8, 2022
Beautifully resonating. Brought out emotions I hadn't known were in me. The author put so many of those emotions into words. The book was extra fascinating for me as a lover of languages and translating. Would recommend to everyone.
January 3, 2024
I read this for a class, and I have never been so GAGGED reading about what seems to be my own life and experiences laid out in front of me. the ever liminal age of 12 years old and the permanence of immigration. THANK YOU!
October 27, 2020
I savored this book in small servings to make it last. A lovely look at language, belonging, identity.
January 6, 2021
Alfabet/Alphabet is one of those rare books I didn’t want to end. More to come!
March 28, 2021
This is a wonderful book with inspiring thoughts - it is very moving. It's the best book I've read for a long time.
March 15, 2022
This is lovely. I hope I can read something similar for other languages.
Read
March 29, 2023Stunning. I could see every scene of this book in my head, and feel the emotions in them, too.
February 21, 2024
A beautiful exploration of life and language
May 10, 2024
At once a moving memoir of immigration and multiculturalism and an eloquent paean to the richness and individual character of each language.
9/10
9/10
October 14, 2025
I thought this was okay, just not really my thing. I think if you know some Dutch it would resonate with you.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews