The biblical story in the Book of Genesis talks about the story of an enormous tower that was a sign of human hubris, but also a description of one of the key obstacles humans face to this day. The project of the tower of Babel, as this construction is called, had a very interesting end. The Lord said, “Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” That was the end of the project. “The Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the Earth”.
There are a few important points in this story that have applicability today. I only want to take one of them out: people who cannot truly understand and communicate, cannot achieve great things.
Even though this point seems almost trivial at a first glance its significance is much deeper.
We all grow up speaking a language and that language is a reflection of who we are, what environment we grew up with, and what the culture is in that environment. But, we never learn that until we actually learn a language different than our own. For people who are built to do numbers, like myself, there is nothing easy about this! In fact, it’s agonizing and frustrating and success does not come easy.
There is a little advertised fact that I failed French in my matriculation examination (also known as high school diploma), and my only comfort was that Einstein did the same. This is pretty much the only topic I ever failed and I can start blaming my horrible French teacher and his archaic methods of instruction, and perhaps even his love for alcohol which seemed to affect the quality of his teaching. But, if it boils right down to it, that kind of stuff never affected my performance in other fields. French was just way harder for me than for some of my peers.
The first time I liked speaking French was during my military time and certainly later during my PhD when I spent a few weeks at the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur – obtaining some of the most exciting work-experiences during my entire education. Speaking French, as unprofessional and incomplete as it was, opened doors for me. I did not just understand people’s words, I understood their thinking, their priorities, and also their culture. I got interested in French, not just as a necessity for communication, but also as a means of understanding what’s behind the words. That, I think, is what the Babel lesson is about!
An even more profound consequence of learning foreign languages relates to the understanding of the native language. I would argue that nobody truly understands their native language before they speak another language. This second language does not have to be perfect, but they have to be able to communicate on somebody else’s terms and rules. It’s an eye-opener!
There are things that are absolutely common in all languages I have learned. They belong to a basic vocabulary that relates to being human. There are things that are far less fundamental, and it shows when comparing languages. Yet, there are subtleties that can only be understood when language is put into its cultural context. The toughest problems of understanding relate to historic texts where there are major effects of both the geographic and historic contexts. I admire the courage of people who take texts which are thousands of years old or written on different continents and cultural contexts, and interpret them – down to the word – in the contexts of their every-day language! People who speak and read a foreign language are much more likely to understand this point than others!
The point from the Babel story also has a very serious side. We cannot achieve great worldwide success if we don’t truly understand each other and each other’s languages. Yet, almost any challenges facing engineers today have an international flavor. The obstacles of Babel – the lack of understanding each other languages, the lack of understanding each other’s thinking – are therefore obstacles in many lives of engineers who have never learned any other languages and who are entering the work force today.
This is one of the biggest advantages of engineers and scientists educated outside the US or the UK is the fact that they are forced to learn different languages. They may have a harder time impressing during their first talk, but they will have an easier time finding the way to the minds of others. I actually think that it’s a matter of years that the first problem is resolved. Soon, we will have portable devices that will provide real-time translations of words and communications. But, it will be a long time until we can teach computers to make us aware of the cultural subtleties that are in a word, a sentence or a pronunciation. For my life-time, and likely for the life-time of students graduating today, that bigger challenge will be addressed most effectively through languages and foreign exchange.
This thinking is the very motivation of our International Program in Engineering. We need a broad, international understanding if we want to achieve success in big projects with global reach! For me, that’s what the Babel story is all about.