That´s right! A person who speaks more that two languages, whether they are the unknown languages of some remote African village or international languages of the type used officially at the United Nations and International Conferences, is an invaluable asset to himself and to the world at large.

Multilingualism is the ability of a person to speak many languages. Multilinguists will confirm that there are many advantages, indeed, in being able to talk to people from different ethnicities in their own languages. Friendship is more easily established between total strangers who discover they speak a common language, and there is this magical power in a language that makes its foreign speaker more welcome and integrated into a society than those who do not speak it. History knows of a number of occasions in which solving the language problem between parties have indeed prevented them from going into war, serious blood-letting war.

People generally react with marvel when they discover that a person speaks, say, seven languages. They want to know a lot more about that person and they ask questions: How did you get to speak so many? Where were you born? Are you from a mixed marriage? Did you have to move residence often because of your parents’ job? Was your father or mother a diplomat? Don´t you get confused somethimes and mix up the languages?

You politely satisfy all their curiosity and one thing strikes you after the encounter. Ninety nine percent of those people enchanted by the linguistic prowess of the polyglot bottle the impression they have had and continue with their normal lives as if they would have nothing to gain by trying to speak, at least, one language apart from the one they call native, and that, I know, is a big mistake. If for nothing else, people should get interested in learning languages for the mere fact that without linguists, this world would be a much less peaceful place to live in.

One would ask, how did Pontius Pilate, who spoke Latin and travelled all the way from Rome to Hebrew land to become Governor, communicate with his subjects who spoke Aramaic, the true unadulterated Hebrew language? How did Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, who spoke Latin, communicate with Cleopatra, who spoke her own Egyptian language of the time?

Many answers come to mind: They wrote each other Egyptian heiroglyphics on slates. Ceasar and Anthony spoke phoenician or some Egyptian language. Patra spoke Latin, which was the lingua franca of the “world” then, since the great conquerors of history regarded all the parts of planet earth under their conquest as the “whole world”. Remember Joseph taking Jesus and His mother back to their home town to be counted in a census because somebody had the idea to count the “whole world”.

But only one answer comes to my own mind: Linguists did the job. People who knew both languages translated documents and interpreted for Caesar, Anthony, Cleopatra, Pontius Pilate, etc, just like people who know languages today translate and interprete at International fora of the United Nations, European Union, African Union, the G8 and other daily gatherings, public and private.

It is good to know that there is a profession called Translation and there is a profession called Interpretation. A linguist can choose to be one or the other, or both; and the career prospects are very good indeed. I use this medium to call on all those who will, especially students who have not decided on a career yet, to consider going into the language profession. You will ultimately discover that the ability to speak languages is a big and rewarding asset.

So, how do you think Cleopatra and Mark Anthony communicated with each other; or the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon? In what language, considering that they lived continents apart from each other? Let’s have your opinion.