Common Sense DECOMMONIZED, Unjustifiably
I had a dream, wherein I was this unbelievably talented artist working on my dream canvas using my wildly uninhibited imagination to produce the most admired and parodied painting the seriously art-starved world has ever seen. I named my work Mona Lisa.
I woke up to the preset timer beeping from that slow cooker in the kitchen, only to realize my Mona Lisa is, to put it mildly, a creepy one.
The fact that I have mastered the skills of chicken scratch and clumsy scrabble does not necessarily confer upon me the title “artist”, notwithstanding my wishful thinking.
By the same token, someone who happens to “speak” two languages, even fluently, does not necessarily translate or interpret, at least not properly.
To translate, one of the understandably basic requirements is to be literate, in two languages, and to be literate in two languages may be a hard mission to accomplish, contrary to the common conception or misconception. If I am allowed a brief indulgence, I will try to explain why after I am done rambling, in one brief sentence below, about the sibling of “translation”: interpretation.
It happens every day that people are asked to interpret simply because they are observed to speak two languages, even if they don’t read or write in the other language. In other words, illiteracy does not seem to get in the way of effective communication, according to the common conception, or misconception.
Translation and interpretation involve communication across two languages and two cultures. I will not delve into the cultural factor here and will focus only on the one seemingly simple, plain, and easy aspect: language.
In the spirit of beating directly through the bush, please allow me to cut to the chase and simply say the following:
1. Language is NOT a tool.
For explanation, kindly refer to section 2 below.
2. Language is knowledge.
Each and every single piece of knowledge known to human beings in this world exists in the form of some language. If some knowledge exists out there that is not in the form of language, it is knowledge that mankind has yet to command, and upon being commanded by mankind, it becomes part of the language.
3. Full command of any language is something this world has never seen.
People typically understand 1% or 2% of a certain language. It would be very impressive if any individual has commanded, say, 5% of a language. It is just most of the time people maneuver linguistically within the confines of this 1% or 2% linguistic comfort zone, without realizing the existence of or being exposed to the huge world out there (my apologies, the temptation of using fancy terms is still hard to resist). Our linguistic comfort zones inevitably overlap and invariably differ. Tom’s may cover a lot of hockey-related topics as Tom is a hockey fan, while Jerry’s may encompass little as Jerry stays away from the ice. Any YouTube video that has gone viral of a 10-year old kid “speaking” multiple languages would attract numerous comments regarding the kid’s linguistic talent or gift. The only question is: how do we define “speak”?
Common sense is DECOMMONIZED, undeservedly so.