I have always been wondering, ok, not that always, but the more I go the higher is my concern that people actually understand each other. We undoubtedly and definitely understand each other, well, more or less to the level that allowed us going out from “cages” of a stand-alone mind and pushed us towards communicating effectively to reach to the present stage of social and technological advancement. This all would not be possible without evolution of language, this is a crucial tool that majority of us neglect daily just as we do per se neglect the fact of having certain abilities. As most of us know from school physics program, even a solid things are made of smaller elements and, those elements in their turn made of something smaller, and the list goes down to the actual level at which we start experiencing measuring ability limitations.

While looking at any known language we and you my dear reader experience some level of familiarity or, instead unfamiliarity.

But what I was thinking about lately, that in fact none of language is giving us ability to speak about things and describe them fully. There is a well know metaphor that we all are describing things as blinded people are trying to describe an elephant by touching different parts of it.

Aren’t we in the similar situation when we speak about things in different languages? Look at the pink elephant(color of the elephant make no purpose in the text, only yellow spots do)and the yellow spots on it, now, imagine that the spots represent the language ability to describe the elephant by covering the it(elephant) only partially. Using such a projection we can clearly see that we in general can explain what the elephant looks like by just giving projection points that directs our inner set of imagining ability to create a picture of the subject. This is where things get a bit more interesting, imagine how much our life experience affects the description of such a thing as the elephant, and one important role in this has been given to the languages you speak. This on surface might look ridiculous, some may say they disagree, but we never know, since few read this, and few will bother to comment. Let’s get back to the yellow spots you see on the elephant, and their linkage to the primary language you speak. However, lets put another layer of spots (imaginary for now) over the existing one, let it be blue, but while putting it, you randomly set the sport over the elephant. This might not make the elephant look any better but it does help us to understand how an additional language extends the scope of overall subject description. Another way to say this is 1+1=>3.

English is undoubtedly a rich language, it carries a lot of daily tasks across the globe, it would not be extrapolation saying that English is the major business language in the present world. But, is it the most poetic language, or does it deliver exact meaning of such complicated and detailed language as Chinese, Korean, Japanese (those I have more or less understanding of, including culture of the regions)?. In Korean for example, there are a bunch of words that simply cannot be translated to English let’s say without using extensive and long descriptions. Does it mean that people natively speaking Korean understand certain subjects better than English speakers? Might be, and my observation says that it is high likely the case, and that is at least might be because a simplicity of the concepts.

Let me set an example that I have faced while working in South Korean company. There is this work “퇴근” (pronounce as : twegeun) the word stand for the act of finishing daily tasks and leaving the office. I would compare the Korean word to a Zip archive, it just got all the meaning people would need and yet stands easy to use as a single word. Yes, you still can say “Completed/done for today” in English, or «Я закончил на сегодня» in Russian, but that will not have the same richness of meaning as Korean word.

The sample above is just a fraction of what the language withholds, and in fact, this isn’t an act of prizing any language, but rather highlighting that each language is unique and covers a unique patter and scope of the things we understand by our mind and consciousness.

Thus, once again, learning a new language do help in understanding the world and oneself a bit better, and exchange of cultures are plying the vital role in the modern world.

The lesson is: soil is important, but also important what type of seeds we are bringing with us to that new place!