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I am the owner of a somewhat cumbersome last name. At 13 letters long, I didn’t actually learn to spell it until I was in grade two. In a place like Toronto, the thing about growing up with immigrant parents (apart from getting really good at imitating their accents) is that you learn a lot about the culture they came from – sometimes simply from the way they use language.

My mom says she feels like a different person when she speaks Greek. Though she’s fluent in English, she’s somehow more laid back in Greek, and tells better jokes. She tells me she can even make different decisions based on the language she was speaking. In a non-clinical kind of way, it’s as if she has two personalities that she can switch on and off, simply using language.

She and I tend to speak Greek when we’re on the Danforth. Quite so, the neighbourhood is home to many people with names like mine. Something about the place manages to make me finally put to use all those years I spent in Greek school. Maybe it’s the bakeries selling loukoumades (think deep-fried Timbit soaked in honey). Or maybe it’s the fact that the Danforth is the only neighbourhood I know where the Tim Hortons serves as the local social hub for Greek-speaking, card-playing moustachioed retirees. With draws like that, you can’t help but want to be a part of the culture from which your unpronounceable surname originated.

While the wave of Greek newcomers inToronto peaked in the 1960s, the city still attracts one of the highest rates of immigration in the country. And a lot of the people who come here and learn English in their new homes will experience the same thing that my mom feels – that is, the language they speak seems to influence the way they think. Somehow, each language is attached to a slightly different self.

Psychologists have tried to explain this phenomenon using what they call the “language socialization hypothesis.” Essentially, when you move to a new country and culture, you’re bombarded with new cultural norms, as well as a new language. The act of learning both the new culture and new language together means that they’re bound up into a single package. When you speak the language, you’re unconsciously accessing what you know about your new cultural environment, along with the different sense of self you might develop in that new culture. But when you revert to your mother tongue, that language will cue personality traits associated with your culture of origin.

The theory explains anecdotal evidence on why people make different decisions based on the language they’re speaking. In a prototypical individualistic culture like Canada’s, your choices and opinions might reflect those cultural ideals when you speak English – whereas another language associated with a collectivistic culture might make you think and decide otherwise. Do I go out for drinks with a friend, or stay home and cook dinner for my extended family? The answer could depend on what language you’re using.

Now you might be thinking, “Hey, I’m a good bilingual Canadian, and I totally learned French in school. So can I transform into a sexy Zou Bisou Bisou star by switching to French?” According to the idea of language socialization, you’re sadly out of luck (you could always give it a try, though). The key to developing a new sense of self is the simultaneous act of learning your new language as you learn how to make it in a new culture. So unless your French class did some serious field-tripping every week, you are technically accessing the same cultural norms in both languages.

Independent of culture, the idea that language influences the way we think is not a new one. In the mid-20th century an American chemical engineer-turned-linguist named Benjamin Whorf claimed that the structure and content of a language can actually determine thought. While the notion itself is popular, most linguists today have shied away from the idea. But the psychological research on how language might be influencing our minds persists – perhaps because of the intuitions of people who really do feel a change in personality when they change languages.

Neuroscientists have found that our brains process languages differently based on when we learned them. Speaking your native language will produce stronger electrical signals in your brain than secondary languages, and it’s even stored in a different part of brain. However, if you learn additional languages before the age of 14, you can achieve the same proficiency as your native language – and won’t have an accent. That’s because those languages are stored along with your first language in the brain.

But on the social side of things, adjusting to a new language and culture isn’t easy. Even with skills and schooling, the likelihood of finding a job as an immigrant is far lower than a local’s chances. John Oreopoulos, a labour economist in Toronto, has looked at some of the barriers that stop skilled immigrants from getting jobs. He sent out 6,000 fictitious resumes to job postings in Toronto, using either “Canadian-sounding” surnames or Chinese, Indian, or Pakistani names. He found that even among a sample of Canadian-educated people, the Canadian-sounding names got called back for an interview 40 per cent more often than those with foreign-sounding names.

These days, the Danforth has extended its prospects to people from all over. Since its 1970s heyday, the neighbourhood has become home to many old and new Torontonians, not just the Opouloses. But even so, I still like to go back and see the weirdly translated Greek street signs, and speak that language that’s so closely tied to the culture my parents came from. And despite the changes to the neighbourhood, you’ll still get the ambrosial Greek bakeries, and the baptism supply outlets that reek of 1980s crinoline. But you’ll also get sushi joints, gluten-free bakeries, and fancy Italian restaurants as the area succumbs to gentrification.

In 10 years, I don’t know if the neighbourhood will still remind me of my grandpa’s moustache. But until then, I’ll gorge myself on as many loukoumades as possible.

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Erene Stergiopoulos writes for Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter @fullerenes.

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