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Mountain Language (Trade)

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Harold Pinter's MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE is a short play in four scenes inspired by the oppression of the Kurds in Turkey. As the play begins, we see a group of women waiting all day through snowfall and intimidation by dogs to visit their imprisoned husbands and sons, . Pinter's "political" plays have always explored how individuals and governments exercise power over their fellow man, and here Pinter concentrates on how oppressive regimes have broken the spirits of minorities by banning their language:

"OFFICER: Your language is dead. It is forbidden. It is not permitted to speak your mountain language in this place. You cannot speak your language to your men. It is not permitted. Do you understand? You may not speak it. It is outlawed. You may only speak the language of the capital... Your language is forbidden.. It is dead. No one is allowed to speak your language. Your language no longer exists. Any questions?"

This prohibition continues even in the case of an elderly woman who does not speak the "language of the capital". She cannot communicate with her son in the prisoner because her language is banned and she has no other means. The third scene, where a woman is sent through the wrong door and sees her husband hooded and shackled and realizes that sleeping with the commandant is the only way to save her husband, is especially unnerving.

MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE has the same absurdist tendencies and odd turns of phrase as Pinter's other political plays, such as "Precisely" and "Party Time", but on the whole is one of his most successful works.

While the theater of the absurd is often regarded as distant and alienating for readers, it often carries the most profound examinations of social and historical flaws. MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE, by Harold Pinter, is a ruthlessly bitter and comic examination of the conditions of prisons where men and women are treated without regard as if they weren't part of the human race at all. In a broader context, it examines human separatism and our readiness to ignore the similarities between ourselves and other people. Through its disturbingly nonsensical dialogue, it becomes a harsh criticism of the human condition, that we are so unwilling to embrace all of mankind. MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE is a small treasure, one of the great pieces of absurd drama.

This book, which I had read before (I gave my copy to a friend and so ordered a new one), is a short, terse, and very powerful testament to the cruelty of interfering with the language rights of others. I read somewhere that Pinter got the idea from an incident in Turkey--the same one that led to the establishment of International Mother Language Day in February. I think every two-bit "English Only" enthusiast in this country should read this book, if they're able to.