My Language
watch original V-Blog in Persian
watch original V-Blog in German
Closely related to culture, language is an expression of who we are and what we value. It is, for example, very telling, that the word for 'education', 'culture' and 'religion' is one and the same in the Chinese tradition. Languages reflect the physical and spiritual reality we live in and they all evolve with time.
Languages merge and fuse, they pick up expressions and words from other cultures and they progress to account for our rapidly changing world. Even within any given language meanings change. "Chatting" meant one thing in Elizabethan English, and something totally different in the age of 'Skype' and 'Yahoo IM'.
Languages are dynamic and alive. Yet some of us try to put them in a box, seal them, isolate them, and make them the cause of exclusion and distinction between "us" and "others" - thereby taking the very wind out of their wings.
In South Africa we have 11 official languages, and because a lot of people associate Afrikaans and English with the languages of the 'oppressor', they go back to looking for the roots of their own languages and cultures. But that in itself is a difficult if not impossible task, because at the root of anything we find only more roots and more offshoots. Iranians the world over are cleansing their language of Arabic, associating what they perceive to have been violent cultural imperialism with their inability to get a grip on their own current lives. By getting rid of Arabic, they feel, they can reclaim some of their old glory. But that glory lies in the past – and so they miss their pursuit of the now and of the future. And what lies at the root of 'pure Farsi' anyway? Sanscrit - and somehow that's again not quite Farsi....So what is an Iranian if he's not defined by his language!?
More important than what we say and how we say it, is what we do. We can preach love and unity in any language, but living it is the challenge. If only we were to define ourselves by our actions, and less by our vocabulary!
If languages are worlds, then we won't live in one common world with one common destiny and in brotherhood, unless we learn to communicate, both by heart and tongue, in one universal language that connects us as peoples and inhabitants of this world.
I often wonder if someone landed from another planet and asked me to take them around the world, how I would explain that I cannot communicate with most earthlings...!
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Japanese stir and turn and twist over this issue and the invasion of English "loan words". Many Americans living here often try to out Japanese the Japanese by insisting on avoiding the loan words and search for the "pure Japanese" word. Yes, I have felt those same feelings too. :-)
We do need an international language, I have spent and am spending alot of time learning Japanese. If I ever get "there" I want the others following me to go through the same "rite of initiation". :-)
Isn't this what helps keep tradition alive, and people in prisons ;-)
English as it currently exists is a defacto international language but not one I would choose if I were meeting and consulting over the matter. Things won't change during this century. But I would imagine that by the next century America will have lost alot of its huff and puff that keeps American English on top.