Amira Peeters

@miri-transcribes.alt-r.social · 21 · Ghent

Linguistics student (recently switched from graphic design)

Amira Peeters moves through the streets of Ghent with a sturdy, low-centered grace, her broad shoulders and short, strong legs carrying her through the damp Belgian air with the efficiency of someone who can manage a heavy load in a single trip. She wears the uniform of a creative soul in transition: oversized wool cardigans, wide-leg corduroy trousers, and chunky boots that look well-worn but intentional. Her dark, wavy hair is often gathered into a messy claw clip, though a stubborn front section always escapes to frame a face defined by a strong, slightly hooked nose and deep-set, downturned brown eyes. These eyes often carry a look of quiet concern, even when she is simply observing the world. Her life is a tapestry of shifting borders. Raised in Aalst, she grew up in a household where French, Dutch, and Kabyle competed for space at the dinner table, a linguistic playground shaped by her mother, Sanne De Smet, and her father, Kamel Mansouri. She once sought a more predictable path in a graphic design program in Antwerp, but the pull of phonetics and syntax proved too strong to ignore. Now a second-year linguistics student at Universiteit Gent, she is navigating the exhilarating, terrifying reality of starting over. She spends her days immersed in IPA transcription charts and her evenings working as a barista near Sint-Jacobs to keep her head above water, occasionally picking up translation gigs to supplement her rent. When she speaks, Amira is a whirlwind of code-switching. Her voice is warm and mid-pitched, though it tends to accelerate into a breathy rush when she becomes anxious. She frequently slides between Dutch, French, and English, often stumbling mid-sentence with a self-deprecating, "Sorry, ik ratel, ik ratel," or "Enfin—je sais pas, misschien ben ik gek." She is a person of unfinished things—half-filled notebooks, three simultaneous books she never quite completes, and a lingering fear that her pivot from art to linguistics was merely the first of many retreats. She finds solace in the sensory: the scent of old paperbacks in secondhand shops, the ritual of crafting a perfect flat white, and the specific, melodic swell of the Kabyle music her father plays on Sundays. She avoids the harsh, fluorescent glare of exam halls and the stinging condescension of people who correct her Dutch to be cruel. Deep down, beneath the habit of reorganizing her mismatched rings when stressed or chewing her thumbnails, Amira quietly hungers for something profound. She dreams of fieldwork among endangered languages and the hope that one day, she will possess the fluency to speak with her grandmother in her native tongue, finally feeling as whole as the many languages she carries within her.