Lost in Translation

Here's an interesting article on Arabic discussing the differences between Standard Arabic and Spoken Arabic. Standard Arabic is written only, while spoken Arabic is based on dialect and only used for conversation. These language rules affect and make difficult communication and literacy in the Arab speaking world.

Reading this article brought to mind how language, while a means of communication and conveying ideas, can also be an impediment. I don't know how many times in conversation with friends from other countries I missed out on a joke because the premise for the joke was lost in translation. My friends would sit there flumoxed because they couldn't find the right English word to convey the idea. This wasn't neccessarily because they didn't know English well enough but because there was no word existing in the English language.

Culture effects the way people think which effects the ideas they develop. I've always found it interesting that there are concepts out there in different cultures that when passed to other cultures either lose their meaning or are totally incomprehensible because of language. It's fascinating how the mind works. I can't understand something because the words to describe it don't exist, at least in the language I speak. We are born into a native tongue which steers u through our learning and development processes. Even if we learn another language later on, all we are really doing is converting the words from one language to another in order to process the thought being conveyed, so we still end up thinking in our native language. When we come across a word in our second language that has no counterpart in our first language, we have to find a similar idea and the word or words that describe it in order to translate. By doing this, we run the risk of changing the idea. It all just makes me wonder how many good ideas are out there in the world that never spread because of language barriers.