{"id":1093,"date":"2012-10-11T17:03:18","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T17:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/speak-english-or-get-out\/"},"modified":"2012-10-11T17:03:18","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T17:03:18","slug":"speak-english-or-get-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/speak-english-or-get-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Speak English or Get Out!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speak English or Get Out<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I recently heard a joke that resonated with me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWhat do you call someone who speaks 3 languages? \u2013 Trilingual\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you call someone who speaks 2 languages? \u2013 Bilingual\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you call someone who speaks 1 language? – American!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0As a bilingual person, I thought this was funny and shared it with some friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0One friend responded that \u201cit’s possible to function perfectly fine in one language.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>He continued by saying \u201cif you have no desire or plans to travel, why worry about learning a language, why not instead, use your time on other important activities?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Good point and it could be valid – except…….<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Culture is communicated through language.\u00a0 <\/span>How many times have we heard a pastor say \u201cit says love in the Bible but in the Greek there are three types of words to communicate love, and now this really means\u2026.\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0We\u2019ve all heard that there are 15 different ways to say \u201csnow\u201d in the Inuit language.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0In Portuguese, a common word is \u201csaudades\u201d which expresses a feeling which we find no word or expression which can be translated into English.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many psychologists believe that language dictates the way we think. \u00a0<\/span>Researchers have found that bilingual people solve problems quicker.\u00a0 <\/span>Others say that language actually determines our ideas – not only how we think but what we think.<\/span><\/span> That it tends to make us think in a particular way.\u00a0 <\/span>Therefore, different languages actually influence our thoughts and belief systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is why it\u2019s so important to learn another language.\u00a0 <\/span>As our world becomes smaller and we begin relating more and more to people of other cultures, not just abroad, but also wherever we live, understanding another language will help us relate.\u00a0 <\/span>Not just with the people who speak that language, but we will also begin to see that we understand ourselves more \u2013 and we understand scripture and God in a new a deeper way.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A quote I especially like In \u201cTheology, A Very Short Introduction\u201d by Ford, says that \u201cwords usually get their meaning from the company they keep.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>This reminds us, especially in Biblical interpretation,\u00a0 <\/span>that it\u2019s folly to take a word or a sentence at face value without at least a cursory understanding of the context, culture and time period in which it was first used. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If we can\u2019t understand correctly our own reality until we step outside of our culture, which might not be practical for many, the next best thing is to learn a language!<\/p>\n

Ludwig Wittgenstein, an Austrian philosopher sums it up this way<\/span><\/strong>:<\/span><\/strong><\/span> “the limits of language mean the limits of my world”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Lastly, some words are called \u201cperformative.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>These are words in which language does<\/em> something rather than describes<\/em> something.\u00a0 <\/span>Examples are \u201cI forgive you,\u201d or \u201cI promise to love you.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Maybe performative words are those that will truly change the world!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe, it\u2019s not perfectly fine to function in just one language as my friend alleged.\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s learn about ourselves, our faith and the world \u2013through French, German, Swahili, Portuguese, Spanish, Hindi, Bosnian\u2026\u2026\u2026..<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speak English or Get Out \u00a0 I recently heard a joke that resonated with me. \u00a0\u201cWhat do you call someone who speaks 3 languages? \u2013 Trilingual\u201d \u201cWhat do you call someone who speaks 2 languages? \u2013 Bilingual\u201d \u201cWhat do you call someone who speaks 1 language? – American!\u201d \u00a0As a bilingual person, I thought this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,197],"class_list":["post-1093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-ford","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}