As a bilingual person I have often written about the joys and dangers of “linguistic passing.” Depending on where I found myself, I could remove or change my accent — speaking Québécois French when I needed to, Europeanizing my French on occasion and then making my French tones disappear in an English context. My goal was to disguise my origins if I sensed hostility, back when linguistic tensions were at their worse in la belle province. I confess to thinking that this was unique to Canada so was surprised to discover, as I travelled to over 50 countries, that virtually every place has a version of this, with dialects, patois, accents and more, either strictly regulated, judged or celebrated.

Growing up in Montreal, with a mother who couldn’t speak French and a father who couldn’t speak English, I had an uncanny understanding of the power of words.

It sometimes is interesting as to why God gave humans speech. I recently came across two YouTube videos from Ascension Presents, a Catholic apostolate, which tackles the issue of using obscenities, an area of improvement for myself. Like all of our gifts, we are called to use the virtue of modesty with this one as well. 

VATICAN  – Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia told members of the Synod of Bishops their task was to help young people understand Catholic teaching on sexuality and to avoid using terms like "LGBTQ" that make it seem as if the church categorizes people that way.

Mondegreens are those wonderful phenomena in language where a misheard phrase is substituted for the real thing, usually in music. The term comes from American writer Sylvia Wright who explained that she misheard the phrase “and laid him on the green” in a Scottish ballad as “and Lady Mondegreen.” 

OTTAWA – Service Canada’s directive to employees to use gender-neutral language met with derision in social media, but some Catholic observers say the move represents a dangerous trend.

To see the impact of engraining Indigenous cultures and languages into Ontario’s schools — a practice encouraged by the Ministry of Education — one needs to simply look north.

Have we become a lonely nation?

Pope Francis has urged Christians to engage with the Holy Spirit, and to open their hearts to the Spirit before taking important decisions.

VATICAN CITY – Existing in some form since several hundred years before Christ, the Latin language seems like an unlikely subject to still be generating brand new research, especially among young scholars.

Like E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Independence Day, and a host of similar films over the past 30 years, Arrival explores the theme of an alien visitation to Earth.

Retired lawyer Bob Doherty has no illusions about becoming fluent in Arabic but he’s taking a language course at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax in order to ease the transition for the Syrian refugee family his parish will soon welcome.

VATICAN CITY - As members of the Synod of Bishops concluded work on the second of three chapters in their working document, they continued to call for a tone and for language that is clear, simple and encourages people to see it is possible to live the vocation of marriage and family life.

TORONTO - Parents of Toronto Catholic kindergarten pupils are becoming better equipped to support, enhance and enrich the development of their child’s communication skills.

As Amir Harrak watched the news this summer, the Toronto scholar saw a history, culture and language that he devoted his life to understanding being turned to dust. Churches, monasteries, mosques blown up, libraries full of ancient manuscripts burned and the people who still speak and live according to the language of Jesus and his Apostles dispersed. The news out of Iraq could not have been worse.