In South Korea, parents alert to this dynamic have sent their young children, usually under the age of five, to clinics for lingual frenectomies, surgery to cut the thin band of tissue under the tongue. The operation ostensibly gives children nimbler tongues, making it easier for them to pronounce the difficult l and r sounds. If masters once cut slaves’ tongues out to prohibit native languages, today people do the cutting themselves. And they do it to enable English.
