Language Barrier

Are we ever really speaking the same language?

In the past few months I’ve spent in tiny, coastal Samara, Costa Rica, I’ve hit plenty of language barriers. With the full confidence of a native speaker, I ordered a meal in Spanish “without horses” instead of “without onions.” I asked a friend for an ice pack to treat an injury, and he showed up with a cooler.

As far as I can tell, I’ve been relatively lucky. I’ve heard worse stories, like the Tico who told his friend’s Honduran mother that her home-cooked meal tastes like “vag*na.” He was using a word that in Costa Rica, refers to a small, flavorful coconut. And they were technically both speaking Spanish.

All of this has me wondering – even in our hometowns, are we ever fully speaking the same language? Is language not just the greatest common denominator between all our varied backgrounds and experiences? And if it is, why do we operate as if we are fully fluent in one another? Why don’t we give each other the benefit of the doubt?

Is language not just the greatest common denominator between all our varied backgrounds and experiences? And if it is, why do we operate as if we are fully fluent in one another?

The other night, a quick sunset walk with a friend turned into a 2.5-hour conversation around these questions exactly. We marveled at how social media has made our words accountable to such an array of people, without the context of the personal relationship to rely on. The context of our upbringing and exposure. The context of body language, tone of voice, all of the things that help us bridge the insurmountable gap that exists between our mind and the mind of another. But as the world goes remote, the face-to-face is falling off. And I believe our mass misunderstanding is at risk of becoming a cultural crisis.

As the world goes remote, the face-to-face is falling off. And I believe our mass misunderstanding is at risk of becoming a cultural crisis.

So where do we go from here? Well, French philosopher Jacques Derrida might be of help. He had a theory that we tend to sort things into binaries with words. But language is lossy, and as Derrida argues, this sorting structure is largely imaginary. It’s smoke and mirrors.

Now, your response to Derrida could easily be “why try if we will never fully understand each other?” But I don’t see it that way. I believe when we let go of trying to understand one another in our own terms, we can understand a person in theirs. We can employ empathy and a nuanced interpretation of one another. We can resisting the urge to sort everyone and everything into the binary.

This isn’t natural. We’re in the era of content overload, where we have no choice but to sort and simplify, if only just to make it through our feed.

But here, up against the language barrier – the cultural barrier – I’ve been excommunicated from the echo chamber. Because here, my friends are Tico and Austrian and French and Danish and Argentinian. There is no group-think because there is no group. My friends don’t even know the categories by which to sort me, nor I, them. And here, in the mental wilderness, our conversations have found incredible nuance. Incredible complexity.

So how do we get this at home with our own?

My best guess: not biting off more than we can chew. Taking time to step off the stage and into the cafe, with small but diversified circles so we have the space and time to give everything your nuanced attention. To scale the wall of the barriers together. Let’s chat.