INTERNATIONALLY, BYU is known as “the language university.” The 2017 edition of the pamphlet Y Facts reported that approximately 65 percent of BYU students speak more than one language. Think about it: language is the most complex of all human behaviors, and most of you can communicate in more than one language.
THE COMPLEXITY OF LANGUAGE
Since we can all read English, I would like to demonstrate the complexity of language by giving you a simple English test. How would you read “St. Paul St.” aloud? You probably said, “Saint Paul Street.” And your response to this simple task was likely not only correct but automatic. But can you explain to another person the rule for determining what the abbreviation “St.”stands for? Perhaps you would say that “St.” before a noun is an abbreviation for “saint,”and “St.” after a noun is an abbreviation for “stre et.” Now test your rule on the following street sign, which I saw near Disneyland in California: “St. College St.” Oops, there is no saint named College! However, there is a state college, so we will have to refine our rule for pronouncing the abbreviation “St.” Yes, even simple language is complex. Language is so complex that we are often hard pressed to explain how it operates. Yet we are generally unaware of how complex language is. In some ways language is like the air we breathe: we don’t pay attention to it—unless there is something wrong with it.
THE CHALLENGE OF LANGUAGE LEARNING
Because language is the most complex of human behaviors, it follows that language learning presents a formidable challenge. In fact, language study is a discipline that supports all four of the aims of a BYU education. As you know, a BYU education should be (1) spiritually strengthening, (2) intellectually enlarging, and (3) character building, leading to (4) life-long learning and service.1 Let me show how language learning supports each of those four aims.
Language Study is Spiritually Strengthening
Reading the scriptures in more than one language gives you a more nuanced and fuller understanding of their intent than you can get from reading them in only one language. Joseph Smith possessed a multilingual Bible, and in one speech he reported: I have an old edition of the New Testament in the Latin, Hebrew, German and Greek languages. I have been reading the German, and find it to be the most [nearly] correct translation, and to correspond nearest to the revelations which God has given to me.2
This comment from Joseph Smith also shows the value of having a translator who understands the content of what is being translated. When translators do not know the intended meaning of the original text, aberrations will occur. Joseph’s awareness of the sometimes-conflicting translations of the Bible likely contributed to the caveat in the eighth Article of Faith that “we believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly.”
Elder Quentin L. Cook pointed out in his April 2017 general conference address that the Greek word translated as “virtue” in Luke 8:46 in the King James Version of the Bible is translated as “power” in the Spanish and Portuguese versions of that scripture.3 We do not know why the translators of the King James Version of the Bible chose to use the word virtue instead of power in Luke 8:46. But we do know that they translated the very same Greek word as “power” in Matthew 6:13, which contains the familiar wording “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.”
As Joseph Smith found, misalignments between different translations of Bible texts are the result of choices made by translators—and those differences invite further study to determine which translation best aligns with the revealed truths of the restored gospel.
Language Study Is Intellectually Enlarging
The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”4 Even here there is a translation issue. In the original German form, Wittgenstein used bedeuten, which is usually translated as the English word mean.5 However, when talking about boundaries or borders, I think the word define is more consistent with the intent of the original statement, and one might even argue for the use of the word determine.
While Wittgenstein’s rationale for this postulate is philosophically more complicated than most realize, the implication is easily understood that someone with ability in more than one language can operate in more areas of the world. John Taylor put the relationship between the breadth of our language and the breadth of our perceived intellect much more bluntly. Speaking in the Salt Lake Tabernacle in 1852, he said: It is good for the Elders to become acquainted with the languages, for they may have to go abroad, and should be able to talk to the people, and not look like fools. I care not how much intelligence you have got, if you cannot exhibit it you look like an ignoramus.6 Some of you may be asking yourselves, “Wait, what about the gift of tongues?” Elder Taylor anticipated your question. He went on to say, “You may say, I thought the Lord would give us the gift of tongues. He won’t if we are too indolent to study them.”
Language Study is Character Building
What builds character? In my experience, for an activity to build character it must be inherently good, it must require concerted effort, and it must demand perseverance over an extended period of time. Language study meets all three of these character-building prerequisites.
First, we know that language learning is good. In Doctrine and Covenants 90:15 we are counseled to “become acquainted with all good books.” And as a reminder that not all good books are written in English, the verse adds, “and with languages, tongues, and people.” Second, studies show that learning takes effort. In the stairway between the third and fourth levels of the Harold B. Lee Library is a framed copy of Doctrine and Covenants 88:118. As a student at BYU, I would read that reference every time I exited the library after a long night of study. In particular, the last line would catch my attention. It states, “Seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (emphasis added). I remember asking myself why this revelation included the word even. Wouldn’t it be sufficient to say, “Seek learning by study and by faith?” Was the word even added to emphasize that also in education, faith without works is dead? In any case, the phrase “even by study” became a slogan and a guiding principle during my educational pursuits.
Of course, faith is also necessary. It provides ongoing motivation for us to persevere in our studies, but expecting to learn by faith alone is not realistic. Remember the advice of John Taylor: we won’t be given the gift of tongues unless we study languages. Third, language learning requires perseverance. Perhaps you have heard of the popular notion called the “10,000-hour rule.” That rule suggests that to become an expert at anything requires about 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice.”7 Since many missionaries study and practice their mission language for 40 to 60 hours per week for up to two years, they might devote between 4,000 and 6,000 hours to the study of their mission language. By the time they return, they could amass half of the 10,000 hours needed to become an expert in that language. The expectation that learners will devote thousands of hours to the acquisition of language skills clearly meets the third criterion for building character: perseverance over an extended period of time.
Language Study Leads to Lifelong Learning and Service
Just as having the ability to communicate in another language will expand your intellectual horizons, knowing another language will have a multiplier effect on your post-BYU opportunities for service and lifelong learning. When we hear the word service, our first thoughts are likely to turn to service opportunities in the Church—and they are plentiful. However, service and learning opportunities abound in our vocations as well. Regardless of where you serve, your language skills will make that service personally rewarding. You will get to know and come to love other peoples—and you will do so with a depth of feeling and understanding that would not otherwise be possible.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE SPIRIT
In conclusion, I would like to comment on another language that is available to us all but that is a foreign language to most of the world’s inhabitants. It is the language that Joseph B. Wirthlin called “the language of the Spirit.” Elder Wirthlin described this language as follows: “There is a mighty power that transcends the power of messages conveyed by words alone, and this is the power of messages communicated by the Spirit to our hearts.”8 Of all the world’s languages, it is the language of the Spirit that best satisfies the aims of a BYU education. I have personally experienced the language of the Spirit in my life, and I know it exists. I would like to share some personal examples with you.
A Prompting for Preparation
After five years of marriage, my wife and I had not been able to have children, so we applied to adopt a child through LDS Social Services. We were told that the process would take about two years. After only six months, my wife, Karen, informed me one morning that “our” baby had been born. She knew by a communication of the Spirit that this had happened. She had just had a dream in which a beautiful, blonde baby girl had come from heaven to be in our home. She asked if I would come home early that day so that we could go shopping for baby clothes, diapers, a baby carrier, and a bathinette.
Later that afternoon, as we returned from shopping, I was just unlocking the door to our apartment when the phone began to ring. It was the adoption agency calling to inform us that a baby had been born the night before and that when they had prayed about placing the child, they had felt inspired that this child was meant to be part of our family.
A Prompting for Change
Decades later, when I was working as the chancellor of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, I was informed that BYU would be hiring a director for a newly created Center for Language Studies. I did a pros and cons analysis of my options and quickly concluded that leaving my position in Monterey did not make sense. The logic of that conclusion was incontrovertible, but the Spirit kept nagging me to reconsider. In response to those promptings of the Spirit, I went to the temple and prayed for guidance. “Should I apply for the BYU position?” was my simple question. The Spirit’s answer was immediate and direct: “Yes, and when you apply, you will get the position.” I have never gone into a job interview with such confidence as I did for that BYU position.
A Prompting for Healing
Almost two years ago I placed my hands on my wife’s head. With the assurance of the Holy Spirit, I confidently blessed her that she would fully recover from the cancer with which she had just been diagnosed. That blessing has been fulfilled, and earlier this month my wife and I gratefully celebrated our 51st wedding anniversary.
Yes, learning other languages is important, but becoming proficient in the language of the Spirit should be our top priority.
Ray Clifford is director of the BYU Center for Language Studies and an associate dean of the College of Humanities. This essay is adapted from a BYU devotional address delivered June 13, 2017.
1.The Mission of Brigham Young University and the Aims of a BYU Education (Provo: BYU, 2014), 5.
2. Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, selected by Joseph Fielding Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1938), 349.
3. See “Foundations of Faith,” Ensign, May 2017.
4. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1922), postulate 5.6, 74, gutenberg.org/files/5740/5740-pdf.pdf
5. Tractatus, postulate 5.6, 144.
6. Journal of Discourses, (London: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854–86), vol. 1, 27.
7. Anders Ericcson and Robert Pool, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), 98.
8. “The Language of the Spirit,” Ensign, November 1975.