Knowing that not knowing a language is a barrier happens once you are in a situation that requires you to know that language you don't know. I happen to have interacted with people who speaking different languages and I must add that I can comfortably speak over 7 Ugandan languages whereas internationally apart from English and Kiswahili, I can only pick a few words in French and some little Spanish.
A friend of mine of Rwandan origin who grew up in Masaka - Uganda once told me how she went to Kigali and needed to use a moto as they call boda bodas there. Yes she could speak Kinyarwanda fluently but because, like in Uganda, Kinyarwanda has been infiltrated by some french words especially among town dwellers, it was not going to be your daily casual walk in the park.
So the lady who is at Remera asks the boda guy, that how much it was to Town (Kigali City Centre) in Kinyarwanda. Nangahe kujya mumuji? The Boda guy tells her ni cinq cent (500 Rw Francs) but poor lady didn't know an ounce of french and having alot of Ugandan influence she had to negotiate.. oya ndaguha magana'tanu (No I will give you 500Rw Francs) The boda guy also comfortably told the lady ngaho icara tugende ... Fine you can sit and we go. They rode smoothly to her distination. However, something keep itching her mind why the guy accepted her offer immediately. It was until she reached home and asked a cousin who had grown up in Kigali and therefore knew french that she realised cinq cent was actually the same as magana'atanu. What an embarrassment. I am sure many have experienced this or something related to this. Crazy world.
So, yours truly got a opportunity to study a short course in the Holy Land as they Jews call their country, Israel. It was a 2 weeks course in International Project Planning & Management, from Galilee International Management Institute ((GIMI). A short period but the scope of coverage was more extensive than our typical semester system covers. Every second you waste you end up eating into your time. If you delay doing a task, you will find when your meal card has expired. If you are supposed to entre the dining hall at 7:15pm and finish at 7:45pm, should you go there at 7:46pm, your meal card will be retained and you won't get food. If you have an assignment, which are done online, once it clocks time out, the computer turns itself off before you even save the little work you may have done. Very serious people there.
Now back to my language experience. In our cohort, there were different students from across the world but majority were Africans and whereas we were doing the same course, the mode of instruction was different. Some did it in French, others in Portuguese and then us in English. So there was this very beautiful lady from Angola. I must add that she fitted in all the attributes I regard as a complete beauty. We stayed in the same apartment, same floor, door after door. We also had the same timetable for everything apart from classes. So going to the dining we would move together, evening excursions together, everything. Unfortunately we couldn't even greet each other verbally for spoke Portuguese and the only word I knew was Comusta. Not enough to mean anything, anyways.
I would wave at her or even knock on her door to wake her up and she would do the same but in sign language. I was always feeling I should tell her how I felt about her, which I did actually but in English and everything was agazi. Even when I looked at her closely, it wasn't hard to see that the feeling was mutual. Life went on like this for all the time we were there. On our last day after graduation, we had our final excursion to the Dead Sea, we carried our bags to the waiting bus, sat next to each other through out the journey from Galilee to Dead Sea, through the West Bank. We went to swim in the Dead Sea - By the way the Dead Sea is below Sea level so even if you don't know how to swim you still can float. Don't be misled I ain't no swimmer. She dint swim but was at the shores laughing at me with her well shaped dental formula spiced by a glittering black gum that made me melt inside. If you get the grip.
From the Sea, at around 7PM we walked to the bus holding hands BUT NOT TALKING still. Entered the bus gazing at each other like idiots till we reached Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. She was using a different plane back to Luanda, Angola and I was on my way back to Uganda aboard Ethipian Airways. Magically we hugged for about 5 minutes i looked straight into her eyes and saw a tear drop. She gave me piece of paper where she had scribbled some words which I couldn't read apart from the email address she had written at the end of the letter. When I reached Uganda I unpacked my stuff but failed to get the paper to use Google assist or even reply her via email. 8 years later, I have never heard from her and vice versa.
That's how not knowing a language can be a barrier.
The baganda say okutambula kulaba, okudda kunyumya.. when you travel you experience and can only talk about what you saw. Please make sure your children learn as many international languages as they possibly can.
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