Tag Archives: language

By Kimberly Burnham In Rhodian, a language spoken on Rhodes, the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece the word “ktílos” or “κτίλος” means peaceful, tame, docile, gentle and domesticated as if those who are peaceful must also be docile. In English, the words “tame” and “peaceful” seem pretty different but in other languages tame is a synonym for peace. And while …

Creating a climate at our universities where students can walk away from any content that makes them uncomfortable seems helpful and empowering, but it isn’t.

What we say and how we say it matters. Torah teaches us that G-d spoke the world into existence. The world was created through words. The rabbis teach us to guard our tongue from lashon hara (evil speech).

Why is it so easy to be negative? Why do we say hurtful things so often? We know, from firsthand experience, that sticks and stones may break our bones, but words do, in fact, also break us, and yet we say them anyhow.

Join Spokane Faith & Values panelists Saturday at 10 a.m. for our next Coffee Talk where we'll discuss our relationship with language.

In a perfect world, we’d all understand each other. We’d all know exactly the meaning and context of every sentence, and it would always be the same—across cultures, times, languages—fixed on the pursuit of verifiable truth.