Learning languages ruined my life

Learning languages ruined my life

There is a book with the title “The moral obligation to be intelligent” by Lionel Trilling. What does it have to do with learning languages? Does speaking foreign languages make you more intelligent? It depends. Is the ability to speak another language part of intelligence? Not necessarily. But being intelligent and learning foreign languages do share one thing in common. They are both painful. And by “painful”, I don’t mean the ennui of tediously long lectures or vocabulary and grammatical studies or the expense of time for the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge nor even the loneliness your dedication to the endeavor could bring upon you. The pain, the true torment is the confusion; for the bigger is the circle of the known, the greater the contact with the unknown, and the more firmly all our beliefs used to stand, the more helplessly your new identity totters. If you are lucky enough to study Farsi, you may realize that not all the beautiful poetry is written in your mother tongue; that Persian epics written in the Sesanian Empire are as beautiful as poems of the Tang Dynasty. If you happen to study Spanish, you may realize that, what you thought so unique an aspect of your culture, has a similar counterpart in another culture; that the Puerto Rican Morcilla is almost identical to the Korean Sundae. If Russian is your language, you may realize that not all the important battles that changed the course of the human history were fought on your native land; that the Russian defeat of the Golder Horde at the field of Kulikovo is no less significant than the Reconquest of Granada in Spain. Can’t you do this by reading history? - one may ask. Yes, but history written by whom? For whom? Because, you see, after learning a language, if you care enough, part of you becomes a member of the tribe to which the language belongs. And that cultural schizophrenia can be truly excruciating. That pain, however, cannot be easily offset by the better chances of employment in the job market; or the simple pleasures of impressing your friends at the dinner table with political intrigues historical anecdotes played out in the five different languages. Why, then, would anyone who is not a crazy masochist want to learn a foreign language? Yes, to communicate with people. Yes, to travel to different places. Yes, to advance your career in a globalized world. Yes, it is good for your brain. But more importantly, as potentially excruciating as it is, it is for those curious enough to see the world as it is and those brave enough to tear down the veils of bigotry; instead of comfortably hiding behind the linguistic barrier and refusing to step forward and know your fellow human beings or even the so-called “enemies”. I am, by no means, accusing those not fond of foreign languages of being cowards. If anything, they have to be forever more on their guard of the bigotries, the fatuities and the language barrier and constantly seek more reliable sources of information. Indeed, the pursuit of knowledge is almost by definition, a sort of masochism. And language learning is no exception. But, in such pain, and perhaps, only in such pain, can we overcome misunderstandings, bridge cultures and civilizations and find a world of peace and prosperity.