If you can't name it, does it exist?

In a week I am going to Japan. I don't want to say I am moving because it is not long term, but it is also not a holiday as I will be there for several months. I've been moving places so many times in my adult life I don't even know how to name changing countries anymore. But either way, this means I have been adding Japanese to my quite jammed language plate, where I already juggle Swedish as my native language, Norwegian as my comfort language, English as my professional language and German as my newest addition in my everyday life in Austria.

Beautiful morning light in Stubaital, Tirol, Austria.

Growing up I also spent a lot of time in France with my family and had a fairly easy time learning French in school. Already then I was quite aware of how the French said things differently than we did in Swedish, tu me manques (you are missing from me) being the classical example.

Learning new languages as an adult and also as a communication professional creates a different kind of cognitive noise. The theories around languages, culture and communication intertwine too heavily to keep them separate, and once you start pulling on one thread you end up somewhere much deeper than you planned.

Because communication isn't information transfer, that would make the job far more straightforward. Communication is the creation of shared meaning. And meaning is constructed by the receiver, through their language, their culture, their history, their social position, their relationship to power. You send something out and what arrives on the other side is never quite the same thing you sent.

Learning a language isn't just learning to say things differently. You're also learning that the world looks different from inside a different language. Language is a carrier of understanding and knowledge. If your language has no word for something, it simply doesn't exist as a distinct concept in your reality. That is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and although I am no linguistic expert, this is one of my favourite things to ponder.

Going back to “tu me manques” as an example. The French say someone is missing from them, implying the space or role this person used to hold is empty.

Another personal favourite is the Norwegian "kos dere." The closest English translation is "have a good time", but that misses that "kos" describes a specific quality of warmth, togetherness and deliberate coziness that English doesn't have a good word for. If you can't name it, can you fully pursue it?

Now take away the language barrier and replace it with a cultural one. Or a religious one. Or simply a different geographical background, a different class, a different relationship to the institution you're communicating on behalf of. The mechanism is the same and the message could land in a different version of reality than the one it was sent from.

The more languages you learn, the more versions of the world you get to inhabit. Simultaneously. This helps you understand that the world you grew up in is one out of many, which makes you change how you listen, how you read the room, how you construct and interpret the message.

I'm not sure what my point is. And maybe not having a point is my point. Holding multiple versions of the world simultaneously doesn't resolve into one clear answer, but it does make you more careful about assuming yours is the right one.

And I think the process of learning languages, and spending time in cultures that are not my own, makes me better at my job.