The Importance of Languages
One powerful example that comes to mind is that of a fast food franchise giant that opened some restaurants in India and tried to sell hamburgers. There are significant numbers of people living in India who consider the cow a sacred animal. Imagine a business that tried to capitalize on Christ's crucifixion as a selling tool. It wouldn't go over too well here. If the people in that company had just a rudimentary understanding of the Indian culture, they would never have made such a horrible error.
Our public schools should include foreign language instruction as part of their curriculum. Children learn languages so easily when they are young. If language instruction was started in kindergarten, all of our children could finish elementary school fluent in a second language. They could then study a third language through middle and high school. Our citizens would then be more powerful world citizens.
Lest you believe that we just don't have enough time to teach yet another subject, especially in elementary school, let me tell you that it would be instrumental in teaching world history and geography as well as literature, English, and the arts. Learning Latin and the other romance languages helps us understand English vocabulary. Learning Germanic languages helps us understand English structure and syntax. There are magnificent literary works that can be understood far better if read in the original language. I know that I would have been a better student of Heidegger if I had been able to read it in the original German.
There is a Hebrew/Yiddish word, chutzpah, that requires pages of explanation to be understood. According to Leo Rosten in "Jiddisch, A Small Enclopedia," it is from the Hebrew chuzpá "insolence", "boldness". In America it is: khutspe, chutzpa, chutzpah, hutzpa; in addition: chutzpadik (adjective). Insolence, insolence, arrogance and arrogance, as they are more clearly designated in no other language. Rosten also mentions that the user should be careful with word because, "In Germany it is used tongue-snapping "acknowledgment" gladly with a fatal, which is not contained in the original jiddischen word use."
One example of chutzpah is that of a child who kills his mother and father and then begs the court for mercy because he is an orphan.
In a treatise on Jews dated July 1941, Joseph Goebbels, discusses chutzpah. He describes it as: "Chutzpah is a typically Jewish expression that really cannot be translated
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