Is speaking more than one language a shield against barbarism?

  • Café des idées
The 2023 archive

With the Ligue internationale contre le racisme et l’antisémitisme

A lack of words leads to violence. But to master one’s language, one must speak another, in order to see one’s own culture from the outside. Only thus can one gain access to other worldviews.

Cloître Saint-Louis © Christophe Raynaud de Lage / Festival d'Avignon

Presentation

 Plus d’une langue (“more than one language”) is to motto inscribed on Academician Barbara Cassin’s sword. A lack of words is one of the causes of violence among teenagers. But to master one’s own language, one must speak another, which allows one to see one’s language, and thus one’s culture, from the outside. The monolingual person is a one-legged person... One who speaks (or, as Barbara Cassin beautifully puts it, one who “sniffs”) several languages, one is granted access to other worldviews.

Distribution

With Barbara Cassin of the French Academy, linguist, philosopher

Animated by Abraham Bengio president of the Licra's Culture Commission

Practical infos

Duration : 1h30

Audiovisual