Mountain Language is a one-act play written by Harold Pinter in 1988 after his trip to Turkey with fellow playwright Arthur Miller.

        Parents always tell their children to simply ignore bullies who will eventually get bored and find something else to do when you do not respond to provocation, but what usually happens before this (as parents tend to forget) is that before they give up, bullies will often try one last time to “hit them with everything they’ve got” and achieve some kind of reaction before they give up on their victim and move on to greener pastures. This behavior is observed near the end of the conversation between the officers and women where he overloads her with a relentless and brutal torrent of sarcasm. The effect this has on the recipient as she was unable to respond for the duration of the miniature tirade is that she is instilled with a sense of futility. The unfairness and injustice of her predicament is plain for all to see so there is no point in her trying to argue her defense. Logic is known but thrown aside. She cannot win the discussion; she can only play by his rules, and all this because of the officers’ use of language to completely control the discussion.

        Mirroring the Turks, the guards put down the women through both the language they prohibit and the sarcastic and demeaning language they use. Pinter effectively warns against the dangers of the abuse of language by demonstrating how by sheer absurdity, people can be easily manipulated. Through these lines and this play what Pinter truly wants known on the most basic level is the true power that language holds with his most imperative message being that oppression of a language is oppression of the people.