Mastering more than one tongue completely must start very early PhotoAlto/James Hardy/Getty
THE latest book by science writer Marek Kohn is truly one for our times. In Four Words for Friend, Kohn argues that bilingualism could be the antidote to those seeking to “close borders, build walls and impose a resentful simplicity upon the world”. A language is both a way of communicating and of creating linguistic boundaries to exclude those who don’t speak it, he says. If we became bilingual, we might break through cultural barriers and counter the divisive nationalism gripping the world.
To make this point, Kohn…
