The Word is a Paradigm
Posted: Tuesday, January 25, 2011
by Walter Rhett
Charleston Perlo
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- Photo from the Library of Congress
It is a great irony that the study of languages has a danger implicit at its base: the purpose of making the world more American, the desire to make ourselves understood without an investment in understanding the legacy and grand traditions of others who spoke and created the language being learned. Frantz Fanon once said to speak a language means “above all to assume a culture, to carry the weight of a civilization” . . to be afforded “a remarkable power.” Being able to ask directions and order corporate cuisine may be practical, but it doesn’t produce the talented tenth so persuasively advocated for by WEB DuBois, who studied in Germany and England, a trained community that can apply the skills and ideas that are the legacy of the global community to problems in order to generate new approaches and solutions.
To be honest, I don’t speak Chinese, but I still use the I Ching, whose forecasting method I learned decades ago in college, to generate models and review procedural steps and warnings for issues of social justice. In the choice between learning the language or learning the great ideas of the dynasties that drove its political and social actions, I have always much preferred cultural literacy. I think the ultimate goal for those who want to exceed the utilitarian use of language is to learn to think in the language – in the way the best native speakers do. Then a part of world peace will be the lack of the “ontological resistance” that Fanon spoke of. I know as a SC tour guide working in a region where the only African language was created in America, my clients enjoy the forms and meaning within the language as much as its usual phrasing and articulations. The words, once thought to be assigned to those unlettered and untrained, do hold and reveal a civilization transforming and surviving by wrapping and preserving its humanity in ideas shared and maintained through speech. That language’s function was very different from the status assigned by outsiders. To guard against this contradiction, learning languages should lead to fluency in global thinking.
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Top-level comments on this article: (6 total)Imagine if we all allowed ourselves to be curious about instead of threatened by other cultures and languages - it would be harder for us to go to war with each other. World peace through learning languages - great idea!
"I think the ultimate goal for those who want to exceed the utilitarian use of language is to learn to think in the language – in the way the best native speakers do.... learning languages should lead to fluency in global thinking."A great, scholarly piece of writing, Walter. I really enjoyed it. ~mogama~
If it were mandatory to learn several different languages in school it would break down prejudices like no other single thing could possibly do, and totally change the way that most people view the world around them. People would realize that all men are more alike than we are different and would make it much more difficult to want to physically eliminate someone with whom you have shared experiences. Wonderful article.
Hi Walter.Very insightful and very well written.It can work the other way around too, though. Studying a culture's language can help you to understand the culture. Just the fact that the German language has two forms for the verb to eat (one for humans and one for animals) speaks volumes about the German mindset.Well done.Hugs, Dianne
The more we start understanding different languages, we realize that people from other cultures are no different from us. They also communicate love, hatred and other emotions in their native language just like we do. Great thoughts!DM
I believe a person must get the other person's reality (understand their culture) because there are so many things we can easily assume and increase the barriers instead of reducing them. Good article.
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