Well that’s Spanish for ‘The joy of learning a new language’. A few years back, while helping out my kid sister with her English coursework, I came across one of Pablo Neruda’s poems ‘Keeping Still’. Impressed, I then went on to read more of his stuff in English and eventually stumbled upon a beautiful collection of his sonnets called Cien sonetos de amor - 100 sonnets of love. As I read more and more of his poetry ranging across war, communism, love and odes to heroes, the ‘lost in translation’ tag at the bottom of every poem kept irritating me. One day I decided, for what it’s worth, I’ll learn Español. After 3 months of formal lessons at Maitrise, now I can comprehend most Spanish constructs and actually read Nerudian poetry for myself rather than relying on an unknown translator’s impersonal interpretation. So what is the point of this post?
First is to get me started as a blogger. Second is to talk about ‘One world, one language’. Whether it is going to be Esperanto or English, ever wondered how much more data can be exchanged and how many more connections can be forged between people across the world, at work or through online social networking, if we have one language that everyone knows. A common language in which everyone can think-blog-share-comment. Say if I were to travel to a country where no one except the hospitality staff spoke English, there are only two ways in which I could possibly soak in the people. I would either have to hike around with a translator or try to "ramp up" on the local language in a week or so. On a lighter note, learning common phrases can be useful for survival but this is what could happen to tourists who try to grasp a new language within a week. Besides, now even if I decide to fluently speak at least 3 more languages (3 already done!) before I die, I can only cover one-seventh of the total languages of my own country. Yes, India alone has 22 official languages.
Nelson Mandela said,
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."
So true. We see this happen all the time, don’t we? Ever felt left out in a discussion when two friends suddenly started to argue in their native language? All of us tend to express ourselves better in the language that we can think in but internalizing as many languages as we might need is not a scalable option.
Only if the existing language barriers dilute away can we share content within the currently cross-lingual communities. Translation is okay but unless we all conceive thoughts in the same way, which is greatly influenced by our linguistic training (see linguistic relativity), we cannot really communicate as fully as we want to or like to think we are. An ideal scenario would be one where one common international language is learned by one and all which also implies that each one of us will have to be at least bilingual or even trilingual in the future so that we don't risk losing contact with the culture and literature associated with our homeland's history.
I have already added learning Esperanto on my to-do list. Apparently the language is designed to be grasped by anyone in about 7-8 months and is proven to improve the learner's approach to learning other languages. Sure will be a useful exercise. Will update on how that goes!
I have already added learning Esperanto on my to-do list. Apparently the language is designed to be grasped by anyone in about 7-8 months and is proven to improve the learner's approach to learning other languages. Sure will be a useful exercise. Will update on how that goes!
