It's funny, I was just in the bathroom doing my business when I found myself pondering something super complex - and has nothing to do with defecating, don't worry.
So yeah, you know how you always hear "knowledge is power" and how knowledge and power are always closely associated, not to mention the fact that you cannot explain the two terms separately. Anyway, my point here is, what is knowledge? I was thinking about this whole language barrier, for instance, today in class, a girl mentioned she's got allergies to certain food groups that her body cannot digest. So then this other guy looks it up on the internet and tells her she's got "blah disease" and they start discussing it. I knew exactly what they were talking about, what food groups, what she should eat to compensate for all the vitamins that she's missing out on, yet I couldn't join in on their conversation because I didn't know the correct terms in English.
And I was wondering, while I was carrying out my bowel movement, did that make me any less intelligent than them? I mean for certain carved in concrete theories of Physics, and laws of Chemistry and functions of Biology, the material would all be the same in any language. The kidney's will still cleanse out your urine, the electrons will still be on the outer shell of the nucleus, and for every action, there will still be an equal or opposite reaction - whether it's in Chinese, German or Arabic.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that learning "English" shouldn't be as powerful a knowledge as acquiring any other "knowledge". I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but I'll give it another try. A person does seem more intellectual and intelligent when they can speak multiple languages, yes I'm not saying they don't, but it shouldn't be that way. This is all coming because of my Godawful memory and my inability to learn new languages, hence my pessimism here. Language could be viewed as merely the "medium" rather than an actual knowledge; I mean when you learn a new language, you don't exactly learn new material... you just learn new ways of saying them.. right?
And why is it that we, as Arabs, pride ourselves for speaking proper English? It's just so sad that our Arabic is in the middle of an erosion that we seem to be very ignorant of. For fear of sounding like a complete hypocrite, I am most probably a perfect example for "those people", I don't, however, pride myself for acquiring a vast vocabulary - on the contrary, I always find myself ashamed that I could never portray my thoughts (and hopes and dreams haha) in Arabic, even though I think in Arabic, I sometimes find myself translating many words mentally before speaking. I blame my school for focusing on subjects that were taught in English, and I blame our culture for being so diverse, and I blame our mentality for believing that the West = developed and modernized, whereas we always perceive local products or projects as a failure and an embarassment (I'm thinking Bahjah here, and Muscat Festival :P)
So yeah, you know how you always hear "knowledge is power" and how knowledge and power are always closely associated, not to mention the fact that you cannot explain the two terms separately. Anyway, my point here is, what is knowledge? I was thinking about this whole language barrier, for instance, today in class, a girl mentioned she's got allergies to certain food groups that her body cannot digest. So then this other guy looks it up on the internet and tells her she's got "blah disease" and they start discussing it. I knew exactly what they were talking about, what food groups, what she should eat to compensate for all the vitamins that she's missing out on, yet I couldn't join in on their conversation because I didn't know the correct terms in English.
And I was wondering, while I was carrying out my bowel movement, did that make me any less intelligent than them? I mean for certain carved in concrete theories of Physics, and laws of Chemistry and functions of Biology, the material would all be the same in any language. The kidney's will still cleanse out your urine, the electrons will still be on the outer shell of the nucleus, and for every action, there will still be an equal or opposite reaction - whether it's in Chinese, German or Arabic.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that learning "English" shouldn't be as powerful a knowledge as acquiring any other "knowledge". I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but I'll give it another try. A person does seem more intellectual and intelligent when they can speak multiple languages, yes I'm not saying they don't, but it shouldn't be that way. This is all coming because of my Godawful memory and my inability to learn new languages, hence my pessimism here. Language could be viewed as merely the "medium" rather than an actual knowledge; I mean when you learn a new language, you don't exactly learn new material... you just learn new ways of saying them.. right?
And why is it that we, as Arabs, pride ourselves for speaking proper English? It's just so sad that our Arabic is in the middle of an erosion that we seem to be very ignorant of. For fear of sounding like a complete hypocrite, I am most probably a perfect example for "those people", I don't, however, pride myself for acquiring a vast vocabulary - on the contrary, I always find myself ashamed that I could never portray my thoughts (and hopes and dreams haha) in Arabic, even though I think in Arabic, I sometimes find myself translating many words mentally before speaking. I blame my school for focusing on subjects that were taught in English, and I blame our culture for being so diverse, and I blame our mentality for believing that the West = developed and modernized, whereas we always perceive local products or projects as a failure and an embarassment (I'm thinking Bahjah here, and Muscat Festival :P)
