I grew up as all of us do if we are lucky. In college I was taking a second year of French class. The professor was a dear old man from Russia. His specialty had been Latin and Greek but he was fluent in German, French and of course Russian as well as English. He was a brilliant man! He and his wife had been chased out or escaped from the Communists.

There were only eight of us in the class so we couldn't get away without studying. During the year we had a number of quizzes but never a full-blown exam. When the time came for the final exam we had no idea of what to expect. He did tell us to bring a blue book.

The day of the final exam we walked in to find not a bundle of exam papers but two stacks of books. One stack was all in French, the other in English. He told us, choose two books, one in French and one in English. We were to pick a passage from each and translate it. He sat back, lit up his pipe and we went to work like beavers! We had to call up everything we had ever learned in either French or English. That was probably the toughest exam I ever had to take!

Ever since, whenever I hear of translations I think of that exam. It must give people fits trying to learn English when they come up on words like "to", "two" and "too" to say nothing of idioms. How about the present day usage of "neat" and "neat" or "cool" and "cool"? I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for those who are multi-lingual and have mastered the difficulty of translation both written and spoken.

Years later my husband and I were waiting in a hotel lobby in Copenhagen, Denmark. There were guests coming in and out and talking to the desk clerk. He was a nice older man, possibly in his sixties. No matter who approached him, he responded in that person's language. We couldn't help but overhear the conversations. We heard English of course, but also recognized French, German, Spanish and several other tongues we couldn't identify. The desk clerk switched languages as easily as turning from one person to the next.

We were in awe of his abilities. When there was a lull in his activities, we went to the desk and asked him how many languages he spoke. He very casually said, "Nine". He told us he had worked for years with the National Geographic Magazine all around the world. He was semi-retired but thought he could be useful in dealing with different nationalities in his position as a desk clerk. He certainly was!

We asked him which languages were the hardest to learn. He thought a minute and then shrugged. "After you learn the first three or four, the rest are easy. I suppose Russian and Chinese are the most difficult. The alphabets and characters are different."

We had a family reunion with our sons, their wives and our grandchildren in Quebec City, Canada several years ago. For the first time the grand kids were surrounded by a different language, French. Two of the boys were five years old and the little girl was three. Initially, they were confused by the strange sounds spoken all around them and the odd words on signs. But soon, they were picking up words right and left.

Before long the boys were asking, how do you say this or how do you say that in French? The little girl didn't ask. She just went along with whatever the boys said. We were only there for a week but by the time we left, all three kids had quite a vocabulary! They were like little sponges soaking up whatever they heard and saw. They were having fun!

I wish children were exposed to more languages in the lower levels of school. Conversational language not bogged down in grammar and conjugating verbs, as they will be when they study a language later on. If kids became acquainted with other languages early on they would be more comfortable when it came time to settle down and study them.

Learn another language and you learn about a whole new culture and a different way of looking at life that is as valid for that society as ours is for us.

This is another example of language that probably few of us give any thought at all to its origins.

The words are left and right. The vast majority of people everywhere are right-handed therefore left-handedness is quite strange to most of them. In French the word for left is gauche. "Sinister" is an alternate meaning for gauche. In Arabic countries, traditionally the right hand is only used for eating, the left for taking care of cleansing bodily functions. This custom is thoroughly ingrained into people from infancy. The punishment for theft, which of course is using the hands for unlawful purposes, is to chop off the left hand. In addition to the pain and loss of one hand, the perpetrator is forever reminded not only of his crime, but has to suffer the public shame of eating with the same hand that he uses for nether region purposes.

Another tradition is that in the Church, the nobility sat on the right side of the center aisle while the peasants sat on the left. At weddings it is customary for the groom's family and friends to sit on the right side of the aisle while the bride's are on the left. It is no coincidence that the words right and correct are synonymous. At formal dinner parties, the honored guests are seated to the right of the host and lesser guests further down the table. The least honored are seated to the left of the host.

Naturally, these customs spilled over into the halls of legislation, inferring that the "better" people were assigned to the right side of the aisle while the "riffraff" took their places on the left. Hence, people's political leanings are categorized either to the left or to the right, depending on these seating arrangements.

It is interesting to note that as the Hunters and Gatherers progressed from the Cave Days into Civilization, speech was one of the first steps.  From grunts and hissi-fits to real words was a monumental leap!  This made possible the exchange of ideas from the thoughts of one mind to another.  No doubt, this brought on the change from hunting to husbandry, the second step. Written language made the gigantic leap of the third step, making those words possible over a much wider distribution from generation to generation.  Still, words are fraught with misinterpretation since it is still an exchange of thoughts between the writer and the reader.  To paraphrase the words of Will Durant, "Most of history is guessing, the rest is prejudice." 

And so it behooves us to take another look at our own language.

There is a continuum of meanings for words. I have compiled a short list of words to illustrate this. Where does one meaning leave off and another begin? It is always subjective.

Internal and External

Spirituality and Religion

Patriotism and Nationalism

Revenge and Justice

Gossip and Debate

Private and Secretive

Loneliness and Solitude

Personality and Character

Persuasive and Manipulative

Cajolery and Coercion

Arrogance and Self-confidence

Stubborn and Resolute

Flexible and Uncompromising

Fashion and Taste

Nudity and Eroticism

Miserly and Frugal

Stingy and Generous

Anxiety and Fear

Empathy and Sympathy

Humor and Derision

Intelligence and Education

Wisdom and Knowledge

We seek knowledge in order to achieve wisdom - a life long pursuit.

These are only a few examples. You can think up an endless list of your own. Probably the two most important words in the English language are love and hate. We should use the h--- word most sparingly, if at all, and lavish the use of love.

The tyrants of history have proven that the best way to subjugate a people and force them to do their bidding is to forbid the people to learn to read and write. Societies, that never developed written languages, rarely progressed up the ladder of so-called civilization. We might well remember that the next time we complain about the amount of our tax dollars going to educate our children.