“Knowing one language makes one person, two languages make two”. 

                                                                                                                        

At a TV show, I saw a foreign guest and someone near her. Another one was the person who translated what the guest said into Turkish. At that time, I understood that our ancestors are really right: “Bir lisan bir insan, iki lisan iki insan” (Knowing one language makes one person, two languages make two).  If you speak a language well, you can be two persons by replacing someone.

“Bir lisan bir insan, iki lisan iki insan.” is one of our most popular proverb about language. In our multilingual world, that is becoming increasingly globalized, we often hear this proverb. It simply means that learning different languages is like being a different person. If you know one language, you are a person; but if you know two languages, you are two persons. When you learn more than one language, you also learn another culture. And that makes you another person. I think this is the power of language.

First of all, what is language? Language is a tool in order to communicate with other people, so one of the most important reasons to study and learn a new language is obviously because it connects people: The more languages you have, the more people you can connect.

Also, language is a part of a culture, and culture is a part of the language. There is a strong relationship between language and culture. Language is influenced and shaped by culture. It reflects culture. To learn a different language, we also have to learn the culture of that language. To understand the identity of a society, we need to regard the language of that culture. Language, ultimately, is a symbol and an identity. It is the inseparable part of a culture.  When someone speaks a language, s/he thinks in that language. For example, if a person thinks in English to speak English, s/he also starts to take identity of English. In this sense, one language is equal to one person.

In fact, this proverb well emphasizes “richness” that knowing more than one language add to people. Because of this, nowadays, speaking a foreign language is increasingly important. If you only speak one language, you are really missing out on the advantages of speaking two or more languages.

The first benefit is that learning a new language can open up a whole new world to a person. As Chinese people say, “To learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world”. With learning every new word, we can touch new lives and attain different thoughts. We can actually see things in a slightly different perspective. This learning process makes a difference in the way we see the world and the way we see other people. Without a doubt, knowing a foreign language is not guaranteed to create empathy with the native speakers, but the desire to understand and empathize with the members of a certain society is greatly facilitated by language study.

The second benefit is that new languages will widen the knowledge about linguistics, cultures, people, tradition, etc. If a person doesn’t know another language, s/he has only known his/her own those things. In other worlds, s/he lives in a small world where there aren’t other people’s belongings.

Knowing more than one language has also scientific and physical benefits. it helps people develop their mental ability. Firstly, it accelerates the cognitive development of the brain. Next, it improves analytical and interpretative capabilities. Furthermore, it turns people into more effective problem solvers. As seen, language makes people “think outside-the-box”.

Apart from the benefits mentioned above, speaking another language has a lot of advantages, which make us feel easy in this life. For instance; we can get a new job easily, make progress in the career, go abroad and take the scholarship, get lots of information from the internet, have lots of friends and so forth. On this point, I think many people agree with the following statement made by Frank Smith, a psycholinguist. “One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.”

In conclusion, language changes us as a person not only in the cognitive and perceptional way but it also makes us aware of other cultures and other people. As a result, learning languages is totally positive and it is a good method to support our life. So, it’s highly important to know more than one language. 

                                                                                                        

                                               İBRAHİM KAYACAN ©