Globally, language is the foundation for every human life. This ability to successfully communicate intent and purpose through language is what has aided the development and evolution of humanity to what it is today.
Slang and humour strongly depend on the historical and cultural context of the community in which this form of communication takes place. In Britain, there are jokes that are seen as classic staples of the culture, such as “can’t park there”. However, this sense of humour may be lost on people who are not from here.
As an individual who was raised in an immigrant household of two hard-working Polish people, I was taught the fundamentals of both English and Polish from childhood.
By the time I began school, I had the ability to properly communicate my needs and wants in both languages; however, when it came to the English language, I lacked the cultural knowledge of British jokes, slang, and sarcasm.
These aspects of the language were never explicitly taught to me, since during my childhood, my family primarily opted for Polish slang and humour. However, since then, I have been able to find my footing with British slang through exposure to that cultural humour through friends and media.
Language is not only a form of communication but also plays a significant part in a person’s identity. It may be that restricting the expression of someone’s identity is like restricting communication between languages, since the observer or recipient is not receiving an actual depiction of a message or personality.
A more local example of this is the experience of Welsh-speaking students at Cardiff University. English-speaking students outnumber the Welsh-speaking students at a large scale, despite the university being the largest and most popular in Wales.
In the 2020/2021 academic year, 9.9% of the students spoke Welsh, with only 4.8% of them being fluent.
Consequently, even when attending a Welsh university, Welsh students often feel isolated and disconnected from their peers.
This is not because of difficulties in translating and understanding the Welsh and English languages but rather because they feel limited in their expression of their personal identity.
The university actively makes attempts to rectify this issue by promoting Welsh-only modules and seminars in different courses and promoting Welsh societies and language translation.
Translation issues do not always come in the form of the languages themselves, but can also stem from cultural and ideological differences.
Languages around the world are vastly different, with different rules and terms that must be followed in order to successfully communicate information and ideas in a grammatically correct way.
They play a role in how people perceive their environment and how much attention to detail they have in their everyday lives, as some languages require specific verbs or information to properly describe the situation.
Some argue that to learn a new language is to learn a new way of thinking, as a person may need to adapt to new ways of logical processing to accurately communicate. It is important to note that people’s intelligence is not dependent on the number of languages or which languages they know, and therefore somebody’s viewpoint and contribution should not be disregarded because of their linguistic background.
Language shapes our identities, experiences and ideologies, helping establish a person’s position within a community or culture. It is influenced by internal and external factors, including historical events. With tolerance, kindness and patience, the limitations of translation between languages become minimised as we take the time and effort to understand each other to the best of our ability.