How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Page)
Quote #1
The bearded elders endured the decimation/of their tribe without uttering a syllable/of that language they had uttered as one nation,/the speech taught their saplings: from the towering babble of the cedar to the green vowels of bois-campêche. (I.ii.6)
You're not hallucinating: The trees are the ones talking here. The loss of the trees' photosynthetic language can be compared with the loss of language and culture suffered by the enslaved African people who settled on St. Lucia. The cycle continues on both levels.
Quote #2
and O was the conch-shell's invocation, mer was/both mother and sea in our Antillean patois,/os, a grey bone, and the white surf as it crashes/and spreads its sibilant collar on a lace shore. (II.iii.14)
The narrator gets a Greek lesson from his ex-love about Homer's "true name." He runs with the word, parsing it out in his own native language. This appropriation and mixing of two very different languages encourages the narrator to see his homeland and its people through the lens of epic poetry.
Quote #3
A name means something. The qualities desired in a son,/and even a girl-child; so even the shadows who called/you expected one virtue, since every name is a blessing,/since I am remembering the hope I had for you as a child./Unless the sound means nothing. Then you would be nothing. (XXV.iii.137)
Afolabe schools his son about the dignity that comes with a name—especially one given by your own parents, in their native tongue. Achille has lost the understanding of this importance and, in a sense, has lost the dignity of identity once known by his ancestors. Language is cultural inheritance, and Afolabe is ready to chuck his son if he can't bring himself to care about meanings.