Finding your Linguistic Identity

In James Baldwin's piece If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is? he explains that language "is the most vivid and crucial key to identify: it reveals the private identity, and connects one with, or divorces one from, the larger, public, or communal identity" (Baldwin). He brings up the idea that no matter how well, or not so well a person speaks, they should not Language is used differently all around us, no two people use language and dialect exactly the same. The language we all use is effected by us as individuals-- where our parents are from, where we were raised, what our race or ethnicity is, the conutry we live in, and our age all have great impacts on our own personal linguistic identities. If you looked up linguistc identity in the dictionary you would find it to mean "of or belonging to ones language" but in reality there is no true definition for lingustic identity because everyone's linguistic identiy is different, it is our own personal definition because we all use langage in different ways and for different reasons.