Listen. Learn. Connect. For we are all connected. We are connected to the high and the mighty. We are connected with the lowly and the suffering. One of the things that connects us all is our history. Our history is told in words from all our languages. And our languages are all related. Languages bring us together, they do not separate us unless we let them.

Take English, for example. It is a vast amalgamation of historical connections throughout our shared human history.

Words from thousands of other languages have tumbled down through time to land on the tongues of people who speak the current form of English today. So we who speak English today do not own the English language. We only borrow it. We use it to define ourselves and to tell our stories and to tell our history.

It is language, after all, that has been the trait men use to classify the races. How can it separate us, classify us, split us up? For English is “descended” from all the other languages that have influenced it and added words that we use today. We speak them with pride, thinking that this is “our” language. Yet, for most of us, however, English is our only choice. We are not multi-lingual. We are trapped into using English. It owns us.

Words from French, from German, and from Scandinavian tongues abound. Words with ancient roots from Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit roll off our tongues daily. We call words “English” that came to us from Japanese and Chinese roots. Native American words are proudly employed by English speakers. Many names for our rivers and towns derive from native cultures that the Euro-Americans overwhelmed just a few short centuries ago. English words derived from Arabic languages, too. Sofa, genie and genius are a few.

We all use words that came to us from places that we now call foreign. It doesn’t take a genius to see the value of sitting down together, as if on sofas in ancient Mesopotamia, sitting and talking and listening with folks and working on peaceful outcomes. What a concept? Instead of trying to bomb our way to victory over those who speak a different language, we learn each other’s language and culture. We share. We help each other. Yes. We are smart enough, with our common language and shared history, to work with volleys of words instead of gunfire. Let’s put the genie back in the bottle.

Listen. Just listen.  Answers lie in words, not in bomb bays, not in drones—in getting to know each other.

Image: “Rise” by Caitlin Brown