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Analysis Of Democracy By Billy Collins

744 Words3 Pages

Without knowledge of any other languages, it is difficult to comprehend a community whom do not possess the ability to mentally construct the same meaningful concepts as oneself. It can be exceptionally easy to be misinterpreted in another language via the complex process of translation. Sure, what one person might say makes complete sense to themselves, but it makes less sense to the person you are speaking to for they do not share the same cultural backgrounds and values, and do not have a direct translation for what they are trying to say. It can equally be easy for someone to completely misunderstand the message being conveyed in one language, because their interpretation of a term with which the listener is so familiar is not identical to the speakers’ interpretation of the word they are using.
The inability to translate certain words across languages freely occurs frequently among political terms and concepts. The word democracy, while has various meanings among English speakers including enveloping the concepts of freedom and equality, can be host to an entirely different meaning in another language, or perhaps not even be a recognisable concept in others. This essay will be in response to a statement by Collins (forthcoming), which reads: …show more content…

What is interesting is the writer has chosen to compare the word “democracy”, a highly powerful and meaningful word in some languages, and completely absent in others, with the word “apples”, a word featured extensively in many cultures history, mythology, religion, and symbology, as well as being quite possibly the most popular fruit in the world. These two words share little to no resemblance with each other, are used in entirely different scenarios, and frankly, should not even be allowed to be

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