The couple, who cannot speak one another's language, nevertheless fall in love, a potent message of reconciliation and co-existence to the politically divided communities of Northern Ireland. Friel marked Translations as trying to, "...find some kind of generosity that can embrace the whole island." Post-Colonialism The engagement of postcolonial scholars with Translations arises primarily through an examination of the language issues of 19th century Ireland. As Friel himself has emphasised, Translations is about "language and only language." However, the Irish language has often been interpreted not only as a mean of communication, but also as "a tool for resistance and a marker of identity". Language affects many aspects of one's life, and Translations shows "the power of language to give definition not only to thought, but also to history, ethnic identity and national aspiration". Friel's often quoted denial of the other themes in Translations, is directly at odds with other statements, "...Of course, it's also concerned with the English presence here. No matter how benign they may think it has been, finally the presence of any foreigner in your land is malign." It has been suggested that Friel's creation of Translations was inspired by two colonising projects of the British. Firstly, the ending of independent 'hedgerow' schools which taught subjects in the Irish language, replaced with English language schools. The imposition of the new national school is, in part, an attempt by British colonialism to replace Irish by English as the sole medium of instruction. This change of the educational system, similar to the translation of the place names on the map, has been called the "rape of a country's linguistic and cultural heritage". As the Irish scholar Declan Kiberd remarks, "one of the first policies formulated by the Norman occupiers was to erase Gaelic culture". This historical context serves to demonstrate that the "language of any country is seen as a matter of identity, independence and 'sovereignty'". Secondly, the Ordnance Survey which sought to create standardisations of Irish maps, primarily through the Anglicisation of Irish place-names. Postcolonial scholar Shaun Richards argues that Friel uses these two historical events as the framing for his discussion of colonialism within Translations. As Frantz Fanon said, colonialism, "...turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures and destroys it." In this sense, Friel highlights the destructive nature of the colonial projects depicted in Translations, literally 'distorting' the landscape of Ireland by