Would people be more united? Would racism be eradicated? Would social class disappear? Today I just want to talk to you about something inspiring, something empowering and meaningful that connects the whole world: languages.
At some point in your life whether it is at work, at home or simply travelling, you’ve probably found yourself with languages you couldn’t speak or understand. At a certain moment of your life, this situation may have caused you stress whether you needed to send a very important email to a peer located in the headquarters of your company or you were gently on holiday trying to find your way, a city map in your hands.
Even today with English as a global language, it’s super easy to fall into cultural traps and lead to miscommunications. So I guess it’s time to return to Esperanto’s beginnings. You have probably already heard about it.
Esperanto is an international language created in 1887 by Dr. Zamenhof to facilitate communication amongst people from different countries allowing them to retain their own languages and cultural identities. Well, Esperanto has proved to be a genuinely living language, capable of expressing all facets of human thought more than hundred years ago.
Regardless, the diversity of human cultures has naturally developed boundaries between human communities such as languages, behaviours, traditions and habits.
Today, the world counts 6,500 spoken languages, which I find quite impressive. The most popular one is Mandarin Chinese. Recently, I’ve come across an article about the 100 languages most spoken worldwide and my curiosity made me think.
Here are some of the questions roaming around inside my head:
How would the world be different if we would speak only one official language?
Would people connect more easily and build stronger international trade relationships?
Would travelling and discovering other cultures still inspire us such as now?
You’ll probably think why am I bothering myself with so many questions. But I guess I know where this interest comes from.
I was born in a small city in the South of France which made me a French person (obviously). While I’m proud of my roots and my culture, I don’t feel 100% attached to one country or nationality. I’m not going to start singing “the Marseillaise” right now (just on special occasions). I feel I’m part of something bigger. Well, my parents were born and raised in France but they have different origins from Spain, Vietnam and Poland.
Saying that, let’s go back to the roots together…
My father’s parents moved to France during the Vietnam war whilst my mum’s parents emigrated from Spain during Franco’s dictature.
Despite my background, which to be frank is quite colourful and diverse, I must say that I received a very strong French education combined with lots of French food (of course), homemades tortillas and vietnamese dishes at my grandparents’ place.
At home, we only spoke French whilst my parents were speaking in two languages with their parents. My biggest regrets are not having learned those languages when I was little to immerse myself deeper into the cultures of my grandparents.
It’s never too late to learn.
At 24, I started learning German with a “All you need to learn in German in no time” book before landing in Austria where I joined my Austrian boyfriend. At this specific moment, I knew the essentials to “survive” a couple of days: “Hallo” “Danke” “Wie geht’s?”
After a month in the city, I felt frustrated about not understanding the whole language. I remember that I used to go to the bakery store to buy fresh bread but couldn’t express myself the way I wanted to and the salesman didn’t make any efforts at all. I was so embarrassed at first and was (almost) about to leave the country.
This is when I decided to work in a bar to learn the language for a few months while I tried to understand better the local habits and culture of Austrians. And it’s the best decision I ever made.
As Abraham Lincold said, “People are just about as happy as they make up their mind to be”.
And luckely effort always pays off. While I was serving coffees to a random group of Spanish people, they opened a discussion when they saw that I spoke Spanish too. They encouraged me keep improving my German and to apply at the international company where they worked. After 1002 coffees and 383 Apfelstrudel served, my level of German was finally good enough to apply, so I followed the recommendation and got the job, thank god!
I’m a person that believes that everything happens for a reason and learning a new language is the best way to integrate into diverse cultures. Whether you decide to learn it from the comfort of your couch or in the foreign county, it’s never too late.
You can do it, if you want it.
Of course, I don’t want to give you wrong expectations as I don’t speak German like someone who learnt it at school but I can understand basically every conversation, read books and watch movies in German. It’s all about listening and motivation. In this time of social distancing, we all have the space and time to strengthen our skills and learn new things.
Is speaking different languages an advantage? Yes, it is.
As mentioned and demonstrated with my personal example above, I am fully convinced that speaking different languages can help global citizens in many aspects from avoiding miscommunication to have a wider vision of the world and be more integrated.
So if you’re about to learn a new language, I can promise you that you’ll never regret it. Just go behind language boundaries. Set yourself an objective, whether it is to communicate for the first time with your boyfriend/girlfriend parents or to work abroad, everything is a good reason to keep learning.
I summarised below all of the great points about speaking different languages:
I can understand people much more than I used to. Speaking different languages expanded my vision of culture. I also opened my eyes on traditions, which is super useful in my casual and working life.
My personality and voice change according to the language I speak. It’s very helpful, especially for interpretation in theater or when I act in comedy. I enjoy so much switching between languages to make the show even more interesting!
You can fully integrate yourself in a multicultural environment at work and create strong bonds. The more languages you speak, the more connections you can make.
You don’t have any blockers and fear about not understanding something or creating miscommunications.
You can make jokes (or at least try) in the language of your peers.
You feel more diverse and can learn more from differences.
You have more doors open and can travel in most parts of Europe and express yourself the way you want to.
You can have friends from all over the world.
You can gain more self-esteem and -confidence that help you handle difficult situations easier.
Apparently, people who speak languages have lower risk for developing Alzheimer’s so I will keep you posted on that one if I still remember :)
Anecdote: You can flirt more globally, if you speak more languages. So if that boy/girl smiles at you, you can just go ahead. You can connect with people in all aspects.
Speaking different languages can be a hassle? Yes, it can be.
From the moment we speak different languages, we set ourselves up to experience life differently. As a language lover, I can’t see any destructive effects on being a polyglot. There are just minor details I can point out, which can affect a bit my multilingualism:
The fact to understand everything can be disturbing sometimes, when people don’t know that you speak their language. So if they say something “bad” about you, you’ll know…
Your brain can mix up languages sometimes and you can have the feeling of losing your own native language. *This sometimes happens to me, when I present in public. :)
You can have problems chating properly to your old friends without mixing up languages within the conversation.
To be honest, I don’t know if my passion for languages came from my youth, having been raised in a multicultural environment but my background definitely inspired me to understand the world a bit deeper.
Whether or not you have an atypical story, I think language is a richness that will always remain in history and will keep connecting global citizens in some way.
Language is neither something that you can touch nor you can buy. It’s something you need to learn and understand. It’s invisible, but so powerful!
Would I be the same person if I would speak one language? Would the world be the same if everybody grew up as a native with the same common language? Would this suppose that we would have a life without accents, languages barriers and discrimination between high and low cultures? Would capitalism still be part of our lives?
