Lost in translation
Author Nancy Huston, who was born in Calgary but has lived in Paris for more than 30 years, says in an interview on The Tyee that she thinks hope for humanity lies in translation.
“I think that everyone should learn a second language in childhood. I think that’s the only hope for humanity. I think that translation per [se] is the hope for humanity. I think it’s so important to relativize one’s own culture by getting deeply acquainted with another one.
“I think, for example in France, that kids should be taught Arabic as of kindergarten. I don’t know how many millions of Arabs are living in France, but it’s a language that’s used in the streets, in the stores, in the mosques, in the marketplaces and so forth. If it sounds like ridiculous babble to our ears then we cannot believe that these people are intelligent, sentient beings.
“And it’s so important for kids as of that very, very small age to be able to understand each other and to understand what’s happening in the streets and to take it into their bodies. The brains at that point are still bodies, so before the prejudices start forming.”
But before Canadian readers spend too much time thinking about what language policies in France should be, Huston also made comments about the state of bilingual relations in Canada from her vantage point as an English Canadian writer who writes novels in French:
“I often feel I’m being accused of being a turncoat, of being a snob, of being a renegade or I don’t know. Anyway, to put it briefly, I have never had articles as unkind anywhere in the world as in English Canada.”
Wow. That chick does a lot of “thinking”.
On the subject of bi/tri/quardra-lingualisim I have to agree with her to a point. I do think that second-language teaching should start in kindergarten instead of grade four (or worse, in some districts they start at grade six).
But Arabic? That’s a bit of a difficult language to start out with I think, especially if your mother tongue is English. Romance languages in primary school, advanced foreign linguistics in high school. I’d agree with that.