With todays multiculturalism, we are called upon to interaction with many different cultures sometimes in the same day. A little information of the other cultures language goes a long way.
How did you understand what she meant? a client asked me the other day, as we processed a joint conversation wed had with someone from Venezuela. What did he mean when he said

Years ago a good education was considered to incorporate acquiring Latin, and I was lucky enough to be around at that time. I took 4 years of Latin in high school, and went on to study French, Greek and Spanish.

Latin is the basis of all the romance languages which are the languages of a large segment of the cultures I deal with on a regular basis: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, etc. Most of our medical terms are Greek, as well as many words we use daily.

It has also been said that you dont understand your own language until youve studied another language.

Why is it so important to understand another language in todays multicultural world?

Because one of the greatest conveyors of a culture is their language how they say things and someone speaking a second language will tend to make use of it as they would their own, just with different words.

THE PEDIATRICIAN

My now-deceased friend, Sam, who was a pediatrician in south Texas, down in whats called the Valley which has a large Latino population, told me this story.

He was the only pediatrician for a 200-mile radius down where the stars at night are big and bright. Its the Rio Grande Valley, where they grow all those grapefruits and oranges and there are a lot of migrant workers.

When, as he said, another Mexican had piled 10 children in the back of their pickup truck and then littered the highway with them this is strong language, and you must understand the position of the pediatrician. We will make use of our empathy (an EQ competency) here.

Sam was the childrens doctor, and cared passionately for the lives of children. It was his life. He was the childrens advocate, and he viewed every day horrible things happen to children because of parental neglect and abuse. Sam was FOR the children of the world and anyone, of any color, race, religion or creed, who caused a child to be harmed, was his enemy.

When there had been yet another crash involving children in the back of a pickup truck, which is now against the law in Texas, he would be called to any of the neighboring ERs to try and help with the babies.

There used to be the proverb in south Texas there are few wrecks, but when there is one, it is fatal. The roads stretch out flat, for miles, an engineers dream, and there didnt used to be a speed limit in Texas. People would fly down these roads at 80, 90, 100 miles per sixty minutes and when a rare intersection came, they werent always prepared to stop. And everybody would put their children in the back of the pickup truck, just riding costless, sitting on boxes or crates, when they had to go somewhere.

When Sam would arrive at the hospital, often in the middle of the night, having driven 100 miles, the emergency room would be full of the dead and the dying (carnage, he called it) and he would get busy sticking tubes into tiny veins. He commonly talked about how hard it was to fix up an IV for a premie, and he was proud of his skill at it.

Ive had way too much practice, he would say, and he would show me how he did it, with his gentle hands. I never saw Sam stroll into a room with a baby in it, without going over and picking the infant up. Just to play.

Sam continued, I thought the Mexicans were horrible, because when they we are in the ER all they did was talk about themselves while their children we are dying. They kept quote mi vida, mi vida, save my life.

The literal translation of mi vida is my life.

Finally one day he talked with a Latino about this, and only then did he learn that, as they lay dying, they we are calling out for their children, who were their life. Mi vida, my child, my life.

I think he spent the later many years of his life working through that multicultural misunderstanding, continuing to study the Spanish language and culture. He became, he said, an *aficionado. He participated in conversation classes for years, and helped others learn Spanish. And he would tell all the people this story, urging them to learn and understand.

We have so much to learn. Where do we beginning? Sam would say, learn the language.

*Aficianado from the Spanish, a human who likes, knows about, and appreciates a usually fervently pursued interest or activity