Linguistics: A Bridge to World Peace
Caitlyn Johnston
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I originally donated this article to the Welsh League of Arizona in 2005. As the original author, I have taken the liberty of expanding it here.
Indo-European languages are all interconnected, a web of likemindedness that is unapparent on the surface because we tend to look at modern languages as separate entities, which is normal. In this light, they seem very different, incompatible, even. However, understanding multiple languages actually helps to further peaceful international relations because they provide important insights to our laughter, our love of art, food, music and family - in short, studying languages brings us to our core: humanity. This happens in a very complex way... And when discussing languages as a unified field, it helps to start at the beginning...
For example, let's look at Welsh, a Celtic language. This means it is not closely related to either Germanic languages (English, German, Dutch, etc.) or Italic languages (Spanish, French, Latin, Italian, etc.). Yet all these languages can be traced back to a common mother tongue called Indo-European, which is thought to have once spanned the entire European and Asia Minor areas, as many as 10,000 years ago. It's very much like a family, with Indo-European being the great grandmother, and the languages in each branch being siblings to one another, and cousins to the languages in other branches.
The Celtic branch consists of Welsh, Irish, Scottish, Manx, Breton, and Cornish. The Germanic branch consists of English, German, Dutch, Danish, Flemish, etc. The Italic branch consists of all the Latin-based languages (Italian, Latin, French, etc.). There are a lot more branches than these, though. While similarities can be found in all the languages (these are the building blocks used to reconstruct Indo-European), it is difficult to find a lot of similarities in the languages that are not in the same branches. It is relatively easy for English and German speakers to learn each other's languages ("house" and "haus", "hound" and "hund", etc.). Similarly, it is relatively easy for Italian and Spanish speakers to learn other Italic languages ("house" is, in both Spanish and Italian, "Casa"). It is more challenging to go from English to French or Welsh ("library", "bibliothèque" and "llyfrgell", respectively) and and vice versa because of fundamental differences that are unique to each branch.
One thing that makes studying languages so interesting is when learning a language, students get to see how a different culture views the world. Things are organized completely differently for Welsh speakers than they are for English speakers. A stark example of this is that Welsh sentences, as a rule of
thumb, begin with a verb, whereas in English, the verb is simply moved around to form a question.
Another interesting thing is that language is history. As one traces invasions, one can see how languages get mixed, and branches become extinct. English and Welsh have two different periods of a mixing with Italic languages, first from Latin, during the Roman occupation of the British Isles, and the second from French following the conquest of William the Conqueror. It was from this period of about 1100AD - 1300 that English changes from Old English to Middle English. Now, Old English and Middle English, and Old and Middle Welsh, are ostensibly extinct. No culture uses them anymore, functionally, only academically. Ditto, Old German, Old French, Old Norse,, etc., etc..
Linguistics is one of the fun things about learning European languages. If one has a reasonable grounding in an Italic language, one is able to spot the borrowed words. For example, in both German and Welsh, the word for "window" is from the Latin "fenestra". Despite the subtle differences in each language, this is obvious. In German, it's "fenster" and in Welsh, it's "ffenestr". Oddly, in Spanish, it's less recognizable: "ventana". We use it in English, too, but only as an obscure legal term: "To defenestrate" means to throw something (or someone) out the window. The more languages one knows, the more easily one learns yet another language because they fit together like a puzzle. Linguistics is all about recognizing patterns.
It's a shame that so many Americans are intimidated by other languages. With such a poor understanding in this area, there's a weak understand of the real implications of historical events and no understanding of other cultures. What remains is fear of the unknown. The result? This dearth of polyglots contributes heavily to the current political climate of xenophobia. Studying multiple languages helps people embrace and welcome the world around them because they get to see the commonalities that bind us in our humanity. Studying languages and linguistics actually fosters world peace.
Independent Music Professional; violin,viola,bass, electric bass guitar, private lessons
8 年Your article opened a new line of thinking for me. I never before made the language/history connection.
Making tech easy! Dynamic Technical Documentation and Knowledgebase Management. AI-Driven SaaS, PaaS, LaaS. R&D focus. Proposals. API. SOPs. UX/UI. NIST. ISO. SOC2.
8 年Thank you, James! I appreciate your feedback.
Publisher
8 年Enjoyed your insights; thanks for taking time to post the feature.