Let me tell you astory about two scientists, two English scientists. They were doing anexperiment to do with genetics and the forelimbs and the hind limbs of animals.But they couldn’t get the results they wanted. They really didn’t know what to do,until along came a German scientist who realized that they were using two wordsfor forelimb and hind limb, whereas genetics does not differentiate and neitherdoes German. So bingo, problem solved.
If you can’t think a thought, you arestuck. But if another language can think that thought, then, by cooperating, wecan achieve and learn so much more.
My daughter came to England from Kuwait.She had studied science and mathematics in Arabic. It’s an Arabic-mediumschool. She had to translate it into English at her grammar school. And she wasthe best in the class at those subjects. Which tells us that when students cometo us from abroad, we may not be giving them enough credit for what they know,and they know it in their own language. When a language dies, we don’t knowwhat we lose with that language.
This is – I don’t know if you saw it on CNNrecently – they gave the Heroes Award to a young Kenyan shepherd boy who couldn’tstudy at night in his village, like all the village children, because thekerosene lamp, it had smoke and it damaged his eyes. And anyway, there wasnever enough kerosene, because what does a dollar a day buy for you? So heinvented a cost-free solar lamp. And now the children in his village get thesame grades at school as the children who have electricity at home. When he receivedhis award, he said these lovely words: 「The children can lead Africa from whatit is today, a dark continent, to a light continent.」 A simple idea, but it couldhave such far-reaching consequences. People who have no light, whether it’sphysical or metaphorical, cannot pass our exams, and we can never know whatthey know. Let us not keep them and ourselves in the dark.
Let us celebratediversity. Mind your language. Use it to spread great ideas.