COMMUNICATE CLEARLY IN A LANGUAGE EVERYONE SPEAKS

CONSIDERED OPINION

By : Mr. D. Irwin Wudditworth, M.B.A., Senior Manager, Pryor Cox Wealth Management Associates LLC (A Professional Financial Group Specializing in Estates, Trusts, Investment Instruments, Funds and Precious Metal Acquisitions for Both Banks and Individuals); Lecturer on Communication Issues in the Financial Community; Boat Enthusiast; World Traveler and Linguist.

Language is important. Without language, it would be impossible to effectively communicate with other people. Language enables us to precisely transfer information, thoughts, beliefs and emotions from our own minds to others. True, we do not always communicate with language. Sometimes, we convey our thoughts, beliefs and emotions with our bodies. But body language does not suffice for significant financial transactions. I could not, for example, use body language to say: “I offer to sell these low-bearing investment trust certificates at 5 points over prime on or before the close of business this Friday, May 24, 2010.” Only language can transfer all the information relevant to that transaction. Facial expressions, gestures, grunts, winnies, guffaws, clicks, gesticulations, guttural noises, squeaks, hand waving or even muscular spasms could never exactly inform the listener about the transaction I contemplated. Put simply, we need language to provide and receive the information necessary to do business.

But this creates new problems. Although language enables a speaker and a listener to pass information necessary to consummate mutually profitable deals with one another, the world is large. Not everyone speaks the same national tongue. For example, I cannot call a Chinese manufacturer on the telephone and say in English: “Listen up, Chu, I want 45,000 bales of unprocessed indigo sent FOB to my pier in Los Angeles by 6 PM on Monday the 14th. I’ll take care of the insurance. What’s the market price today?” If I said these words, they would sound like pure gibberish to Mr. Chu. Yet both Mr. Chu and I have the capacity to use language; we both want to profit from one another. Still, we do not speak the same language. The language barrier makes it impossible for us to consummate a financial transaction. That is a problem. Thus, it is not enough to speak just any language. To successfully engage in commerce, both the buyer and seller must speak the same language. What good is a well-written contract if no one understands what it says?

How can conscientious businessmen overcome these linguistic difficulties? True success requires clear communication and a solid financial vision. And the only way to clearly communicate is to speak in the listener’s language. Many companies try to teach people how to speak foreign languages. They say that “anyone can learn a new language” if they try hard enough. But learning foreign languages is burdensome. It takes forever to learn countless new words and idioms. Even after learning all the words, native speakers correct you and make you feel like a fool for making grammatical errors. Although it can be intellectually satisfying to learn a foreign language, it takes far too much time. It can take decades to truly learn another language. In the wealth management business, we don’t have decades to do deals; we need to do deals every month. If we wasted our time learning foreign languages, we would go out of business. Additionally, “intellectual satisfaction” is a paltry reward for the immense effort needed to learn the language. Worse, even after investing countless, unpaid hours into learning the new language, in the end you’ve only learned one language. There are hundreds of languages left on earth, each of which is a potential market. It does no good to spend a lifetime learning Italian when you need to make money in Russia. In this light, learning foreign languages—while essential to doing business abroad—is not financially practicable. Basically, it takes too long and brings in comparatively little for the effort. No matter how you slice it, language learning is a bad business proposition.

I am not ashamed to admit that I do not speak Dutch. I don’t speak Portuguese, Hindi or Chinese, either. In fact, I only speak English. This limits my linguistic ability to consummate profitable transactions with foreign speakers. But there are other ways to communicate with others beyond national language. I speak a much more universal language, a language that everyone on earth understands: Money. Everyone knows what cash is. Everyone likes bank checks and deposit certificates. Everyone likes high-yield promissory notes and bearer bonds. Money talks. And it talks very clearly. No one misunderstands money. It can negotiate better than any urbane linguist, no matter how many degrees he has on his wall. When it comes to convincing people, I don’t need to waste 20 years learning French. I don’t need to understand poetry or opera. I just need to put up some numbers.

In the Old Testament, it says that God deliberately scattered human beings by splitting them into different linguistic groups. The Bible says: “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand each other’s speech.” Genesis 11:7. I hate to disagree with God, but I do not believe that language separates us. Quite the contrary, people are more similar to each other than different. Money speaks to all people; it does not “confound” anyone. Everyone understands “wire transfer, “ “cash payment,” “draft charge” and “gold.” God may have tried to separate human beings by splitting their languages, but money has reunited us. We do not need to master grammatical subtleties to “understand” a Japanese person. We just need to know how much he wants for the goods he’s selling. I want the goods; he wants the money. He doesn’t speak English; I don’t speak Japanese. But we both understand each other. Despite God’s best efforts here, money transcends all linguistic quandaries. Put simply, money is a universal communicator. It obliterates divisions and changes minds. It convinces better than any high-flown rhetoric. It is even better than logic: People would much rather have dollars than “sense.”

I believe that everyone on earth can clearly communicate with one another. We all speak money. We all understand money. We all want money. If we all want the same thing, why should we squabble and misunderstand each other? In my experience as a wealth manager, money answers every question. Whether I’m dealing with a Belgian industrialist or an Indian baker, the question is always the same: “How much do I get?” And my question is always the same: “What’s the fee?” No matter how divergent our cultures or how varied our languages, money unifies us. There is no reason for us to fight. We both just want money. Culture, religion, national traditions and social customs do not really matter in the end. Without money to pay bills, buy food and maintain homes, there would be no culture or national tradition. People know that. That is why they all speak money. Everything else is secondary. I believe that our world can be a better place if we all just focus on the thing that unites us all: Money.

In this light, I am proud to work at a firm that promotes international understanding. In my business, I see people from all over the world smiling, laughing and singing. Why? Because they are making money. My firm does not speak their national language. It does not even really care about their traditions or their national folk heroes. It simply allows them to conclude profitable international business transactions at reasonable rates. We do not condescend to our clients. We merely show them numbers and profits. We do not need to master their languages or cultures. We talk money. And they understand us perfectly. Even the most recalcitrant Islamist smiles when we show him a productive portfolio, even if the money comes from Christian-owned enterprises. In this way, money does not transcend national and linguistic lines; it even crosses deeply-rooted religious hatreds. Money makes everyone smile, even Jihadists and African dictators. It defuses tensions. That is a beautiful thing.

God may have separated human beings by “confounding” their languages. He may have tried to breed discord and confusion among nations by interfering with our ability to communicate with one another. But God underestimated modern commerce. Today, people all over the world no longer need to understand every word they hear. They just need to know dollar amounts. Understanding is simple. It is all about cash, dividends, returns, puts, calls and sales. I am proud to work for a firm that promotes international understanding and clear communication. I speak money. No one misunderstands me. I do not offend anyone. I do not make linguistic faux pas or accidentally insult anyone. No, I just show my listeners how much cash they are making. That’s enough to transcend any language barrier. And best of all, I never had to waste any time mastering bewildering new vocabulary or grammar rules. Who has time for that when you can just talk money and everyone understands you every time?

We live in a hopeful time. We can make the world a better place if we all work together and speak money together. We all want the same things in life. At Pryor Cox Wealth Management Associates LLC, we understand what’s important. We make people happy because we communicate clearly. Language is an artificial barrier. We believe that everyone on earth can communicate with one another in peace, as long as they just talk about money. What else really matters, anyway?

Life is too short for confusion. Don’t be misunderstood. Get to the point. Talk money.

LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE; MAKE THE EFFORT, IT WILL AMAZE YOU

I have learned many things by studying German. Germans tell me I have reached “near native” ability, but there are always peculiar words and expressions that elude me. Foreign languages always remain foreign languages, no matter how long you study them. There comes a point beyond which you just cannot really learn any more. If you were not born with a language and did not experience early life with it, you will never achieve the limited fluency you achieve later by abstract, theoretical study. That is not to say that you cannot learn languages later in life. It simply means that you can never master all the idiomatic intricacies that native speakers naturally sense when they speak, read and write. That is a cultural inevitability.

For me, German has been an adventure. From my earliest childhood, I have been fascinated with Germans and their language. I could imitate German when I was a child, but I did not start learning the language until I was 18. For some reason, it was an easy process. I have studied many other foreign languages in my life. But none came as easily as German. It came to me almost by second nature. For years, I have tried to understand why. Was it my ancestry? My family line traces partially back to East Prussia and German-speaking Protestants in modern-day Poland. One hundred years ago, my great-great grandfather was a newly-arrived immigrant in Connecticut who spoke no English at all. By my mother’s time, no one spoke German in my family. Then I resumed the family tradition by speaking German again. Perhaps it is easier to learn your ancestors’ language if only a single generation separates you from it.

German is remarkably similar to English. As a native English speaker, that could also explain why it was relatively easy to learn. In centuries past, English looked even more like German than it does today. They both come from a common “Germanic” tradition. Over the past 300 years, English has changed drastically by assuming numerous French and Latin-based words. Even its word order, grammar and spelling have changed. German has not changed as much. German still retains peculiar rules for spelling, word order and grammar. English used to have similarly peculiar rules. Like the Germans, we capitalized all our nouns (read the Constitution; almost all the nouns are capitalized) and we combined prepositions to create words like “thereof,” “hereby” and “whereby.” The Germans do that all the time, as in “davon,” “hiermit” and “wobei.” Now, English speakers simply say: “I haven’t heard of that.” In times past, they said: “Thereof have I not heard.” Germans still use the old-style syntax: “Davon habe ich nicht gehört.” To understand German, you simply must imagine that you are speaking old-time English. If you can do that, the two languages appear virtually identical.

English used to distinguish between formal address and informal address with the words “You” and “Thou.” “You” was formal. “Thou” was informal. German retains the distinction. In formal address, Germans use the word “Sie.” In informal address, they use the word “Du.” Our linguistic heritage provides an easy explanation for this. In English, the sound “th” is unusual. Many foreign speakers cannot make the sound because it does not exist in their languages. In times past, however, the English “th” used to be a hard “t” sound, almost a “d.” That explains why German words with a hard “d” generally have English counterparts containing “th.” “Du” became “thou.” “Doch” became “though.” And “durch” became “through.” In passing, you can also see that the soft English “gh” used to be guttural, matching the German “ch.” With time and study, these similarities and interrelationships become obvious. They have led me to the conclusion that German and English are extremely close linguistic relatives. Thus, if you can speak English, you simply need to make a few systematic changes and you can speak German. You just need to cut through the Franco-Latin underbrush that has grown over the basic Germanic roots. In some cases, the roots are still visible. “Der Finger” in German still means “finger” in English. “Der Fisch” means “fish,” and the list goes on.

Once I achieved some proficiency in German, I began reading original German texts. This was a remarkable adventure. From philosophy and literature to law and history, I gained insights into a new world of ideas. Many great German texts have not been translated into English. By reading books in German, I began to understand that there are different ways to approach problems and different ways to discuss them. Language channels thought, and when you can speak a different language, the thoughts come out differently. German can analyze ideas and create concepts in a way different than modern English. True, It can be difficult to read. But it is worth the effort.

I spent three years studying American law. During that time, I read almost without pause. I learned how to examine arguments and writing styles. Nonetheless, almost all American judicial writing follows some common patterns. For one, it draws on a common Anglo-American legal tradition. Second, it applies English rhetorical techniques that only make sense within the Anglo-American value system. Third, it is in English. That may sound prosaic, but I mention it for a reason. English has limitations. It is difficult to create concepts in English without clumsily splicing ideas together with “ofs,” “fors” and “-ations.” English sloppily splits and reconstitutes ideas in ways that German does not. When it comes to the law, such imprecision can be confusing.

During my last year in law school, I opened Immanuel Kant’s “On the Metaphysics of Morals.” After studying Anglo-American law for almost three years, I was stunned to see a legal work written with such conceptual coherence. The concepts were well-defined. The arguments were logical and concise. There was no muddling about facts. There were no tedious exceptions or qualifications. There was no bad writing or English double-talk. There they were: Concepts and arguments in clear, concise, precise German. Yes, it was difficult to sift through the writing at first. But it is difficult to grasp any legal concept during your first encounter with it. After reading Kant just once, however, I felt like I understood a whole lexicon of new ideas. Unlike American judges who fashion ponderous “fact-based” tests and bizarre English grammatical conundrums such as: “Unless it requires proof of an element that the other offense does not,” Kant labeled his terms, defined them, then made arguments based on them. It was remarkably intuitive. And I have never forgotten them. I re-read them when I must, but unlike American cases and statutes, I do not need to constantly re-read them just to understand what they are saying.

This is the problem with English: There are so many different ways to say the same thing that it can be difficult to grasp immediately what the author is talking about. Studying German made me appreciate that. That is why I strive to be as clear as I can in my English writing. I do not want to confuse; I want to enlighten. I want people to know what I think. You can’t do that if your reader has to re-read your sentences forty times before guessing what you mean.

Lately, I have been reading the German Civil Code, Germany’s all-encompassing authority on civil law. Germany does not have a system in which a contract defense may exist in Arkansas but not in Nebraska. It does not have fifty disparate tribunals that pronounce different legal rules for negligence by referencing strange facts from ancient cases. Rather, it sets forth a uniform standard for claims involving private parties, no matter the facts. Even the concept “tort” makes more sense in German: “Impermissible Acts (Unerlaubte Handlungen) Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch § 823.”

I think it is helpful to understand how other countries resolve legal questions. Although Justice Scalia rejects reliance on foreign law to understand American law, you do not have to use foreign law as a means to decide cases. You can deepen your understanding about the law in general by examining how other countries think about the same issues. Actual reliance on German law to decide an American case presents technical problems in the American federal system. But there is nothing wrong with keeping an open mind to other legal traditions merely for enrichment. Justice Scalia is hostile to all foreign law because he thinks advocates will use it to warp American legal traditions. See, e.g. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 622-630 (2005)(Scalia, J., dissenting). He buttresses his argument with familiar republicanism by claiming that the “American people” adopted their legal traditions and judges have no right to import European replacements without democratic consent. I do not sound such alarms. I simply believe that it is beneficial for any perceptive person to understand how other countries approach legal problems. I have a simple rule in this regard: The more you know, the better you are. And you can make better decisions if you know more than if you know less. Justice Scalia’s hostility to foreign law proceeds on the rationale that it is better to know less than more. In my view, that is not a good policy.

I often write about debt and the difficult issues it raises with regard to fairness and power. In German law, the Civil Code defines a “Debt Relationship” as follows (my translation): “By the power of the Debt Relationship, the Creditor obtains the right to demand a service or performance from the Debtor.” Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch § 241. What a remarkably concise definition. This is good, clear German explication. Rather than sifting through ancient cases to discover what “debt” means in every American State, here we find a simple, pithy definition that applies in every court in the country. From a substantive perspective, we sense immediately that debt implies a power relationship. There can be no “debt” without a “relationship,” and that “relationship” creates power in the “creditor.” More particularly, the “creditor” has a “right” to “demand” a “service or performance.” These are not uncertain words. They say exactly what it means to be a “debtor” and a “creditor.” They starkly reveal that the creditor can “demand” a “performance,” just as a master might demand a slave’s performance, or a paying patron might demand an artist’s performance. Debt compels action; even if the debtor does not wish to perform, the law gives the creditor the “right” to “demand” performance. He who has the power to compel action necessarily has more power than the person compelled. The law favors the creditor and oppresses the debtor. The relationship is precisely the same in American law; it just does not come across as clearly as it does in the German statute. In that sense, I praise the German statute for getting right to the heart of the matter. The German statute defines the relationship, the parties and their respective powers. It does not mince words and we remember immediately what it means. It is rare to find a similarly concise statute in American law.

I mention this brief example to underscore how much you can learn by studying German or any other foreign language. If I had not learned German, I never would have been able to read this statute or think about how it relates to American norms. I do this all the time. I constantly read, compare, think and reflect. It is not enough merely to read one language. We disserve our minds when we consume only English discourse. There is so much knowledge concealed in foreign discourse. To access it, we must make the effort and learn a new linguistic tradition. Once we do, we never think the same way again. That is a great step forward in itself.