Thoughts on Language

Hello again from Mexico! I've been here for two weeks now, and I have much to share. But I've found it very difficult to wrap it up in a package I can send you. I used to think "You had to be there" was just a throw-away phrase, but that's what it's come down to. I like words, how we use them, what they stand for. So it was a bit of a stretch for me to share pictures last week, but that's what I had to do to give you a window into where I am, and prove it's all real. If someone told me they had done all the stuff I've been doing, I'm not sure I would believe them. Part of the natural human instinct in enjoyment is to share, to prove to others that it's real, and language is one of the chief ways we share.


Because I'm at a loss of what to say this week, I decided to share some of my thoughts on language. As I said, I like words and language, and it has been really fun to live in a foreign culture that speaks a foreign language. I know some basics of Spanish, and enough people around here speak English, so I'm not completely stranded.

So instead of a language barrier, I've found it a language challenge. I really enjoy trying to figure out what Spanish I can, and asking people what I can't. My level of Spanish proficiency is slightly past the "read the billboard" stage and well into the "read the label on the bottle" stage. The last three Sundays I've gone to the Spanish service at church and each week picked up a little bit more of what they're preaching on Abraham. The bilingual Bibles are really fun so I can compare the two languages.

I enjoy reading and listening to Spanish, because I don't understand it all. Once I learned English, I automatically listen to and read the meaning of the words; I can't help it. But it's so fun to listen to language I don't understand so I can listen to the sound of the language, not the meaning. And you know what? Language is a beautiful thing. I can see that people are communicating something, even if I don't understand what they're saying.

As an outsider I wonder how they can tell the difference between "pero" (but) and "perro" (dog). How do I tell the difference in English between "but" and "butt"? Context. What about "hombre" (man) and "hambre" (hunger)? In English it's easy to tell the difference between "man" and "men", even though they're only different by one sound.

I always thought the goal of language is communication. Therefore, correct grammar and articulation is only necessary as far as it is required to communicate adequately. But please take a step back with me. Language is one primary way humans wrap up ideas to communicate them, but that's not all. At it's core, language is intended to wrap up ideas, whether to communicate or not. I for one think in English, even when I speak in Spanish. I still have to intentionally count in Spanish, as it's currently just Spanish labels for the English words.

According to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (in layman's terms), language allows us to think. It gives a framework with which to think. Because of that language sometimes limits what we can think. It's hard to think of something you can't describe with language. But even if we're missing some colours, language offers us a palate of colours with which to paint ideas.

Therefore, because different languages are different ways to think, learning a new language is more than memorising lists of vocab words. In Mexico I've met three-year-olds who speak better Spanish than people who have taken four years of Spanish in high school. Why? Because the children grow up and learn to think in Spanish. Watching four- and five-year-olds switch between Spanish and English from one sentence to the next is amazing to see. The ability to think bilingually will enable them to think deeper than many people as they grow up. It's much easier to learn a language the way a child learns, so I'd much rather learn Spanish by immersion than in a classroom. I want to see how the language works, not just memorise words and their meanings.

As Google learned when they created Google Translate, word-for-word translations are not accurate. Even though the grammars of English and Spanish are similar, they are not word-for-word. As an example, in English I am hungry, but in Spanish, I have hunger (Yo tengo hambre). Or when someone thanks me in Spanish, they wouldn't understand if I responded with the Spanish words for "You're welcome"; that idea is communicated by "De nada" ("of nothing"). Even sentence-for-sentence (idea-for-idea) translations are not always adequate. Instead of translating one word to another similar word in another language, the best translations translate a word to a core idea, then translate that idea to a word in the second language.

Because of this, Bible translations that are word-for-word don't always communicate the best to the modern English reader. We need the cultural references explained to us. Because different languages allow us to think in different ways, there isn't always a way to translate an idea perfectly. Languages allow us to think in different ways than each other.

Once I stepped out of my familiar English-speaking culture, I've been able to see the beauty of language, that language is a way of life, a way to think.