Conquered Tongues

I was driving to work this morning, listening to some music, when I began thinking about Brazil (I'm going on a mission trip there in late July) and how the people there speak Portuguese. I thought about how Portugal planted their language in the people there when they planted their flag in Brazilian soil. Countries that colonize other areas of the world impose their languages upon those people. Essentially, natives in countries that are colonized have their tongues, as well as their land, conquered by the colonizing country.

So, the natural extension of this stream of thinking was this: who has conquered my tongue? It seems like an important question to me, because whoever has conquered my tongue has most likely conquered me.

I know from time to time
That hope seems but a foreign land
A distance that we cannot reach
A language we cannot speak
- 'Everyone' by Sleeping At Last

If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. - James 3:3-12