Why are we so doggedly monolingual?

New Zealanders’ fear of other languages is difficult to understand.

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9th June, 2012

‘In the beginning was the Word …” has to be among the most powerful opening phrases of any book written in English – in this case the Gospel of St John. Chilling to think, though, if I had published that bunch of words in English 500 years ago I could have been burnt at the stake for doing so. Words are powerful things. People whose power depends on them will defend the power words give them to the death – other people’s deaths, usually. No wonder, then, that words seem fearsome things, full of threat and menace, to those who cannot interpret them. We might have just a mote of sympathy ...

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