As part of our ongoing work on language and identity, we watched Shaun Tan’s beautiful animation ‘The Lost Thing”. We considered the different languages in the film, from the protagonist’s narrative to the sign language of the lost thing and even the French subtitles. We then looked at the different ways that the lost thing and the protagonist searched for the lost thing’s identity. It had no family, no place and no friends. We considered the fact that scientific tests and paperwork did not lead to the discovery of the lost thing’s identity. In fact it wasn’t until the lost thing arrived in a place with similar other things that we realised that it had finally found where it belonged and therefore a part of its identity.