By Keisha Quito
In today’s increasingly interconnected world, diversity seems to define where a person stands in society, depicting their role and status based on their personal assumptions. Considering that diversity is what makes human interactions unique whether in school, work, or in your community, it is inevitable to encounter differences in beliefs, traditions, backgrounds, or languages. The most significant of these differences that remains a challenge in our society is language. To be able to successfully navigate the complexity of our various cultures, we must learn to embrace and understand our linguistic differences instead of only tolerating them.
Language barriers have always been present in our world. Whenever people interact and speak different languages, we often observe unfamiliarity with the vocabulary used or their way of expressing whatever they want to say. This sense of unfamiliarity causes a gap, and attempting to bridge this gap is one of the most complex challenges that we can face in our society.
Tolerating diversity in languages starts once we realize that language is not mainly a tool used to communicate but is an aspect associated with our identity. Each language carries history and culture. Just because someone is not fluent in speaking the language you are fluent in does not make them any less of a person. What humans tend to overlook is the fact that English is not everyone’s first language. Some people may criticize other people for being dense in speaking a universal language but we are not aware of how much knowledge they could spew out if they were fluent in English. If we were to speak in their language, we would experience similar challenges.
Tolerating and understanding are two different concepts that people usually confuse. Tolerating diversity is acknowledging its existence, while understanding diversity shows that we accept the nature of differences, hence being considerate of the difficulties that other people encounter in adjusting to different communities. Tolerating diversity without completely understanding and sympathizing with the people who are facing criticisms due to their lack of fluency is similar to listening with no intent to understand. Therefore, we are only paying attention to be able to voice out our thoughts, not so that we could understand other people’s perspectives. How will we be able to understand the world of language barriers if we are just co-existing with it and are not trying to expand our perspective about it?
It is important to ponder that relationships thrive depending on understanding and not solely on acceptance. Language barriers are not just an opportunity for individual flourishment but are also a crucial part in fostering a community composed of compassion and inclusivity. In spite of the fact that language can create divisions, it can also dismantle barriers, construct bridges of understanding, and fortify our navigation to a more interlinked world.
Hence, embracing diversity will surely take a complex process in order to obtain understanding, but if complexity is what it takes to uplift the essence of this, to develop our interactions, and to expand the limitations of criticism, then it would be worth the risk.