To Know Two Languages Is To Possess A Second Soul

 

It was Charlemagne who said “To know two languages is to possess a second soul”. Somebody told me that there is a German proverb that says “Je mehr Sprachen du kanst, desto mehr Mensch du bist” (the more languages you know, the more you are a human being), which happens to be an almost exact copy of a Czech proverb (Kolik jazyků znáš, tolikrát jsi člověkem).

I have a feeling that it all started with Charlemagne and that the proverbs in European languages are probably translations and variations of this famous quote. But who knows. Interestingly enough, this proverb or idiom does not seem to exist in English, possibly because most English speakers are quite happy with having only one soul.

Although we can have only one life on this Earth, this would mean that we can have more than one soul. The problem is, it takes a lot of work to acquire this second soul. Years and years of work, in fact. If you are rich and decide that you need a second passport, all you have to do is invest a certain amount of money, well, usually a lot of money, and many countries will gladly let you have their passport. “Here you go, Sir, please take this passport in lieu of a receipt for a million bucks. Nice doing business with you, thanks very much, and don’t forget to tell your friends about this great deal. We will have a sale again soon!”.

But no amount of money will buy you a second language. You will have to learn it first. Perhaps things were different in Charlemagne’s times, but most people who go to the trouble of learning another language are not that rich these days, although you probably had to be rich 1200 years ago to be able to spend a few years learning another language.

One stupid reality TV series that I am addicted to is “House Hunters and House Hunters International“. I always look for information about whether the English speaking couple (American, British, Canadian) looking for a house abroad is learning or planning to learn the language of the new country where the happy couple is planning to happily spend the rest of their lives. Sometime, usually when it is a mixed couple and one person already speaks the language of the new country, the other person, usually the husband, is already learning or plans to learn it.

But usually there is no indication whether the people who are buying a gorgeous, inexpensive house on a beach somewhere in Central or Southern America, or a “picturesque” house somewhere in Italy, Spain, France or Bulgaria, (Bulgaria is still very inexpensive if you pay in pounds), are planning to learn the language to acquire a new soul to go with their fabulous new house.

Sometime the happy, telegenic couple already has children, and the children are going to be groomed to become translators and interpreters to spare the adults the troubles involved with learning another language. I remember that in one show, when a British couple was buying a picturesque, rustic house in Normandy, the young mother asked her children “How do you say pickles in French?”, her two children answered in unison “les cornichon”. The happy look on her face told me that this couple would probably not learn much more than a few French words, especially since there are plenty of French people out there who already speak some English. Well, at least the children will have a second soul, I was thinking to myself.

If it is true, as Catholics believe, that The Devil will try to take our soul if we commit too many sins in this life (the exact amount of sinning is yet to be determined by a special commission in the Vatican), those of us who have sinned too much could offer The Devil one of our souls in one of the languages that we know, and we would still have another soul left to us.

Since I have lived and worked in quite a few countries on three continents, and mindful of what Charlemagne said, in every country I was trying very hard to learn the new language as best as I could to find my other soul in that language, I should have accumulated something like 2.6 souls during the last few decades.

If The Devil comes and asks for my soul, and he probably will, I can try to haggle with him so that I can keep at least one of my souls.