The recent Mother Tongue Day at the Primary School enhanced ISP community’s awareness of the power of language.
Our Primary School Principal, Richard Harrold, wrote:
“It’s often been said that English is the great thief among languages! At least half the words in the English language derive from languages other than Anglo Saxon. In fact, many neologisms are based on Latin, Greek or even surprisingly exotic roots. I recently learned, for example, that the word wiki comes from Hawaiian!
There are apparently other language thieves out there too! According to linguist Bill Bryson, in Armenian, only 23 per cent of the words are of native origin, while in Albanian the proportion is just 8 per cent. Think about the implications for a national culture where 92% of your vocabulary comes from other languages. At ISP, where sixty-two languages are spoken, we get a daily opportunity to learn from other cultures and other ways of seeing the world. Mother Tongue Day is designed to celebrate that - and to provide an opportunity for students to value and appreciate their own languages. Sometimes, learning how another language forms a concept can be particularly illuminating. Combine the word "eye" with the word "water", and you have the word tear - at least for a speaker of Korean. Combine the words for "danger" and "opportunity" and you have the word "crisis" for a speaker of Chinese! Nahki speakers even manage to project their matriarchal culture through having female prefixes denote power and strength and male prefixes denote weakness or smallness! A female stone is a boulder. A male stone is a pebble!
Kenneth Katzner once said that speaking only one language is a bit like living in a huge mansion but spending your whole time in just one room. At ISP we intend to encourage our students to open those other doors and take a look around.”
We would like to thank all our parents who came and shared their mother tongues! The day was a huge success, and everyone truly appreciated the inspiring and engaging activities that the parents had planned for us. A special thank you goes to ISP’s Cross Cultural Coordinator, Marianne Freire, for her hard work in organizing this event.
Click on the photo to see a slide show!
6 Rue Beethoven, 75016 Paris, France