A Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas and M. NourbeSe Philip’s “Discourse on the Logic of Language” both touches on the topic of language and how slavery is involved with language. Frederick talks about language with his surroundings and how he learned to move away from the slavery oppression while M. NourbeSe Philip talks about language familiarity and how slavery suppressed people and their language.

Frederick talks about how he learns the language of his people and the language of his opposing white people. This goes on to help him win from the oppression put on him by the white people who controlled slavery. He learned language and through that, he learned to think for himself. He learned to question his surroundings and learned how to go against this world that is trying to suppress him.

M. NourbeSe Philip talked about the suppressed slaves. They feel that they have no “mother tongue”. They don’t know how to communicate through English since that is not how they and their family are used to talking even though white people are using it everywhere. They were not taught to use this language so they had “anguish” towards the English language.

Overall, both poems portray how the slaves and African American race are suppressed in terms of communication and language. Frederick goes against the suppression while M. NourbeSe Philip talks about how it feels to be suppressed by the English language.