If I am so passionate about languages today, it’s because they have been a part of my life forever. My childhood was steeped in the changing melodies of very different languages. I spoke English with my Welsh mother and Breton with my father, and my sisters sometimes spoke French to each other. These three languages intertwined to form the warp. The other Celtic languages we heard through music and the European languages I learnt at school made up the weft of what became the fabric of my multilingual life.

I watched people around me fight the government for our right to be taught in our local language, Breton, and saw how differently other countries (namely Great Britain and Germany) dealt with minority languages. I struggled to understand the premise under which languages are made out to be a threat to national unity. I have always felt that knowing multiple languages was such a privilege; I would want everyone to have access to it, too.

I now speak six languages and am learning a couple more. I spend my mornings and evenings teaching people to love languages instead of being afraid of speaking them. I still get annoyed when I hear people say only certain languages are worth learning. ‘There aren’t enough speakers, it won’t give me financial or social standing, I don’t care.’

With each new language that we learn, we discover a new way of seeing, understanding, and appreciating the world. When travelling in Europe, I feel amputated of the simple greeting and encouragement expressed by the oh-so-Turkish ‘Kolay gelsin.’ Sometimes, I would love to access the simplicity of German compound words in French. But if I hadn’t learnt these languages, I would never have had the opportunity to know about these little things that, through language, shape not only our culture but our outlook on the world.

The code-shifting needed to learn languages and use them properly forces us to see the world through new eyes. The more we put ourselves in a position to contemplate the world from another point of view, the better we understand others, whether we know their culture or not.

Multilingualism builds not only tolerance but also true understanding of each other. And it does so, whether the languages you speak are widely spoken or endangered. At OLI, by providing language services to non-profit organisations, we aim to extend their reach and allow those who don’t have our privilege of bilingualism or multilingualism to better access content and services. By donating my translation skills and promoting multilingualism, I hope to work toward a world where languages aren’t an obstacle for the less fortunate any more.