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The Oneironaut’s Diary

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Michael Bassey Johnson

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“Kyiv is a bilingual capital, something unusual in Europe and unthinkable in Russia and the United States. Europeans, Russians, and Americans rarely considered that everyday bilingualism might bespeak political maturity, and imagined instead that a Ukraine that spoke two languages must be divided into two groups and two halves. "Ethnic Ukrainians" must be a group that acts in one way, and "ethnic Russians" in another. This is about as true as to say that "ethnic Americans" vote Republican. It is more a summary of a politics that defines people by ethnicity, proposing to them an eternity of grievance rather than a politics of the future.”

“Language is Highway to A Culture (Diary of A Polyglot Neuroscientist, S.2392) Languages are not ornaments, languages are organs, channeling spirit from the heart. Language is highway to a culture, language requires a vessel, not translator. Soon earbuds will feature instant translation, which will render crosscultural conversation seamless, but at the same time, lifeless, hollow and cold. Until we develop the brain technology to communicate meaning telepathically without talking, no amount of translation can carry the warmth, nuances and sentiment of a lived language. As added perk, speaking more than one language delays age-related cognitive decline. Therefore no matter how you look at it, one broken second language is far more valuable than all the mass-produced subtitles.”