The Mother Tongue as Epistemological Ground

Sor Juana mastered multiple languages—Spanish, indigenous Nahuatl, Latin, Portuguese—and recognized that each language opened different doors to knowledge. The mother tongue is not neutral: it carries centuries of cultural observation, metaphorical patterns, and logical structures that literally shape how the brain processes reality. When you think in your first language, you inherit your culture's epistemology—its ways of knowing, its categories for dividing the world, its assumptions about truth. Spanish, Nahuatl, and colonial Latin each offered Sor Juana different tools for understanding theology, science, and justice. Losing your first language means losing access to an entire epistemological system. Reclaiming it means reclaiming a distinct way of seeing and knowing that your ancestors cultivated over generations and embedded in every word.