Wednesday, April 15, 2009

language(s)

One part of the reading that I found interesting was when the Japanese man and Heidegger are discussing what the word for language is in Japanese. At first the Japanese man hesitates somewhat before doing his best to answer Heidegger. I found this interesting because of the idea the different languages can actually shed light on different parts of language itself, parts perhaps unknowable to those who do not speak the language. I'm sure we have all run into some difficulties with a foreign language one time or another throughout our educational lives. By difficulties I mean not only learning foreign words, but the re-defining of certain words that correspond to that culture. Other times a foreign language seems to not have an English word to translate into, this is what I find most interesting, when our language cannot even express what another language can. I can only imagine what it would be like to be able to fluently speak every language, that would be quite an experience with language.

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