“I have been around for a very long time.
“Longer than toys, dogs, or anyone you know…
“In the beginning, I was one.
“But now, you can find me in many different shapes and forms…”
From: What Makes Us Human, by Victor D.O. Santos
In an absolutely brilliant move, Victor Santos organizes the approach to his book What Makes Us Human by means of simple, thoughtful riddles accompanied by evocative illustrations that provide clues to the words of the riddle on each two-page spread. Both children and adults are invited into thoughtful consideration not only on the object of the riddle, but on implications in their lives.
The approach makes every idea accessible and powerful.
The approach also embodies the very nature of language, using words combined with experiences and imagination to open minds to the unique role of language inside each of us and shared among us, world wide.
Yes, research and data show that learning languages and multilingualism are good for the brain, opportunities, effective executive function, increased pay….on and on.
At the very foundation, though, language brings connection, and connection is what makes us human.
There are many challenges currently in our society and world: fear, distrust, anger, anxiety, loneliness, excess, impoverishment, confusion.
Every single one of these challenges can be traced back to how we perceive — how we think and talk about – ourselves and others. Every single one.
How we perceive and understand is through language.
How we think and talk about ourselves to ourselves and others is through language.
How we think and talk about others in our own minds and with others is through language.
Language makes us human.
When the language is healthy, expansive, and well-informed, it connects us to ourselves and others in ways that are not only more positive overall, but, when there is conflict and disagreement, provide pathways to mutual respect and willingness to co-exist.
When language is suppressed, manipulated, limited, and broken, broken also are the pathways to internal, personal peace, and to life-giving connections among individuals and societies.
We see the signs of ignoring language to our peril all around us.
That’s why I asked Victor Santos to be my guest. The riddle of language is an invitation to us all to follow the path and tell the story of the impact of language on our lives individually and collectively.
Read this simple, profound story yourself. Tell your our story of how language has healed you and strengthened your connections. The world needs your stories, too.
It’s not a hard riddle. But it is one of the most important riddles facing us today.
Here’s where can get the ISBN for What Makes Us Human to request it at your public library.
https://www.authorvictorsantos.com/requesting-wmuh-at-local-library
You can learn more and get your own copy in the biography and links below.
Enjoy the podcast.
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Victor D. O. Santos Bio and Resource links
Victor Santos is a Brazilian/American Ph.D. linguist, an award-winning children’s book author, and a father to two multicultural and multilingual children who has lived in 6 different countries and studied 10 languages. His books have been translated into over 30 languages, including several Indigenous and endangered languages. At the core of everything Victor has done so far, both educationally and professionally, is a desire to protect the linguistic diversity and richness of our world, and to ensure parents have the resources they need to pass their languages (and cultures) on to their children.
Victor’s latest children’s book, What Makes Us Human, published in March of 2024 in the USA, has already been translated into 22 languages and has been chosen by UNESCO as the official children’s book for the United Nations International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022 – 2032). The book, which reads as a riddle, focuses on the value of all languages in the world and on the connections between language and culture.
Author website:
Where to purchase a copy of What Makes Us Human:
https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802856258/what-makes-us-human/
How to request that your local library purchase a copy of What Makes Us Human for their collection:
https://www.authorvictorsantos.com/requesting-wmuh-at-local-library
Self-published books:
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/linguacious_llc
The UNESCO International Decade of Indigenous Languages:
https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/what-makes-us-human
Check out the covers and information on all three of Victor’s latest picture books, My Dad, My Rock (Kirkus starred review and a Kirkus Reviews’ Best Book of 2022),What Makes Us Human (a White Ravens 2023 selection and School Library Journal starred review) and Before I Forget (dPICTUS Unpublished Picture Book Showcase 5):
Transcript
00;00;01;18 – 00;00;34;22
Norah Jones
My guest for this week is Victor Santos. Victor is a world language education and assessment expert, a linguist, and an award winning author. Anchoring this conversation this week is his latest book, What Makes Us Human? And the answer is language. Take a look, please, on my website, Fluency.consulting for information about Victor and to find out about this book and how to order it.
00;00;34;24 – 00;01;07;16
Norah Jones
It’s a mark of Victor’s compassion and focus on the power of language that he will encourage you both through my website and his own http://www.Victorsantos.com to ask your public library to order the book so that it may be shared widely to make a change for the world. On the importance of language. Enjoy this conversation with my guest, Victor Santos.
00;01;07;18 – 00;01;32;16
Introduction
Welcome to season five, episode one of It’s About Language, hosted by Norah Lulich Jones. This podcast explores the profound impact of language on our lives. In today’s episode, Norah welcomes Victor Santos, author of What Makes Us Human. Victor’s innovative approach uses thoughtful riddles and evocative illustrations to delve into the essence of language and its crucial role in our lives.
00;01;32;19 – 00;01;50;15
Introduction
Victor’s work highlights that language is key to connection and mutual respect. In a world facing challenges like fear and loneliness. Join Norah as she explores how language shapes our perceptions and discovers the healing power of words. Welcome to the podcast.
00;01;50;17 – 00;02;39;14
Norah Jones
When I start my podcast, I usually don’t do a little mini bio of my guest because I invite you to go indeed to my website, fluency.consulting, and take a look at all the resources. And in the case of Victor Santos, there are so many resources, so many opportunities for you and so much information. But I’ve got to start by saying that you’re about to listen to this conversation with Victor Santos, who is a Brazilian American PhD linguist, award winning children’s book author, and as important as everything else, the father to two multicultural and multilingual children who have lived since six different countries and studied ten languages.
00;02;39;17 – 00;02;46;02
Norah Jones
Victor Santos, it’s a joy to have you here. I look forward to our conversation today.
00;02;46;05 – 00;02;53;07
Victor Santos
Thank you so much for having me, Norah. It’s great to see you again. Our paths have crossed in the past and I’m sure it’s crossing again now.
00;02;53;09 – 00;03;23;10
Norah Jones
Is certainly is. The world has a wonderful way about that, and it’s certainly, to my delight in front of me just to jump right in to where where I have been attracted to what it is that you’re doing recently. I have your award winning book that has been chosen by UNESCO, and I’m going to let you describe what UNESCO has been doing with this book.
00;03;23;12 – 00;03;42;05
Norah Jones
It’s called What Makes Us Human. And as one could expect in a podcast called It’s About Language. That would be language. Victor, tell us about this book. Tell us about the experience of what’s happening with this book, where it has come from, however you wish to start. And thank you.
00;03;42;11 – 00;04;13;13
Victor Santos
Yeah, well thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity. So What Makes Us Human is a children’s picture book that basically mean means it an it’s an illustrated children’s book that was published now in March of 2024 from an American publisher called Erdmann Books for Young Readers. And it was published in partnership with UNESCO. The book has been chosen as the official children’s book for the United Nations International Decade of Indigenous Languages.
00;04;13;16 – 00;04;39;04
Victor Santos
So just to backtrack a little bit, in 2019, I started writing children’s books, and it was actually connected to language because my very first book, I wanted to show my son, who was only three years old at the time, that he should be proud of having different languages spoken at home and having different cultures. So he was actually the main character of that first book.
00;04;39;04 – 00;04;58;25
Victor Santos
It’s called Dylan’s Birthday Present, and the book talks about speaking different languages, and the main character has to use his knowledge of different languages to solve a problem in the book. So basically, it’s portraying languages as a superpower that you have. The more languages you are able to speak, the more things you can do, the more people you can communicate with.
00;04;59;00 – 00;05;26;08
Victor Santos
So that was in 2019. And then now in 2024, What Makes This Human was released. And it’s my ninth children’s book. So what Makes This Human is a book that is written in the format of a riddle, where readers don’t really know what the book is about until the very last page of the book. So the listeners of the podcast know that the answer is language.
00;05;26;08 – 00;05;46;11
Victor Santos
But most of the people who are going to be reading the book won’t know that. And each one of the spreads in the book, each one of the pages will give clues as to what the topic might be. But readers are always wondering, oh, is he talking about fire? Is he talking about trees? Is he talking about something else?
00;05;46;14 – 00;06;16;07
Victor Santos
So both the text and the illustrations will be giving close to the fact that it’s about language, but it’s very subtle clues, right? So I wanted to read what makes us human, basically to put a strong focus on the importance of every single language in the world. as we know or as many of us know, there’s over 7000 languages that are currently spoken in the world.
00;06;16;10 – 00;06;37;02
Victor Santos
And, you know, many people are surprised by that number. And it’s like, wow, that’s amazing. We have all this linguistic diversity. And indeed it is amazing that we have all of those languages, because each one is a little window into what it means to be human, what the possibilities are of existing here, different ways of thinking, different ways of interpreting the world.
00;06;37;05 – 00;07;08;08
Victor Santos
But unfortunately, languages are dying at a very fast pace as well. It’s estimated that every two weeks a language dies, right? So just to put things in perspective, about 25% of the world’s languages, 25% of those 7000 or so languages are spoken by fewer than 1000 people. Right? So when you think of being 25% are spoken by fewer than 1000 people.
00;07;08;10 – 00;07;34;20
Victor Santos
So that means that in 50% are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people. So the great majority of the languages in the world are at a very delicate point in terms of their survival, especially indigenous languages. Right? Indigenous languages have a bunch of other forces that they are under the impact of. That means that they’re losing speakers very fast.
00;07;34;25 – 00;08;28;09
Victor Santos
So, for example, indigenous populations in general, they live 20 years less than non-Indigenous people. That means you have fewer speakers. You have elders that are passing away and not being able to continue to transmit the language to new generations. And when UNESCO heard of the book, they approached me and they asked if I was interested in partnering with them to get this idea of the importance of not only indigenous languages, but they coming from the perspective of indigenous languages, because the decade of 2022 to 2032 has been chosen by the United Nations to be the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, and this is a period of ten years where, especially through the work of UNESCO,
00;08;28;09 – 00;09;11;24
Victor Santos
the United Nations is working with different entities, different governments, to really call attention to the importance of indigenous cultures and indigenous languages. So they saw the book as a good opportunity to get it out there into the sort of general public where it’s less of an academic discussion, where it’s less at the government level, but it’s ordinary people like you and I, who actually we pay taxes so we can decide, you know, if we support language revitalization programs, etc. but just awareness, the more people are aware about the importance of language and languages and the fact that many of them are disappearing, the better it is for the cause of linguistic diversity.
00;09;11;26 – 00;09;22;02
Victor Santos
So the book has now been translated into 22 languages already, and almost all of them in partnership with UNESCO. So UNESCO is a co-publisher of the book.
00;09;22;05 – 00;10;07;02
Norah Jones
Your deep compassion and enthusiasm and focus are clear in that wonderful description of where are you, where it has come from, and what its purpose is. How indeed do you, from a heart point of view, from a from an experiential point of view, look at what is in the book and what you’re trying to say. I noted even before you had expressed this idea that there’s I concepts on each page for consideration, that you were not skirting past difficulties you were talking about.
00;10;07;08 – 00;10;31;01
Norah Jones
For example, in one of the two page spreads about the reads, when you were a baby, you hardly knew me. Over time, you have gotten to know me better and better. But when you get old, you may forget me. You also have a statement about I can be as soft as a kitten or as harsh as the Alaskan winter.
00;10;31;01 – 00;10;55;12
Norah Jones
If I might even go to this last moment here with you, I can show you love. But I can also hurt you. You’re looking in depths of language. Tell us about how it is that you have brought that heart to it. What your belief system is about languages, along with what you’ve already said about the importance of them.
00;10;55;18 – 00;10;57;04
Norah Jones
But your own experience.
00;10;57;07 – 00;11;20;27
Victor Santos
Yeah. That’s, that’s a great question and thanks for, drawing attention to those specific pages of the book. so just for listeners to understand my, my background, in a nutshell, I did my undergraduate degree while I was still living in Brazil, and that was in linguistics. Right? I actually focused on working with indigenous languages.
00;11;20;29 – 00;11;50;23
Victor Santos
and my dissertation was about a Brazilian language called Shivangi, which is one of the biggest languages, in Brazil. And after that, I moved to Germany and the Netherlands to do a master’s degree in computational linguistics, which is basically dealing with computers and technology and how they relate to human languages. So, for example, you know, being able to talk to your phone, Siri, automatic translation, things of that sort.
00;11;50;25 – 00;12;21;29
Victor Santos
And then I came to the U.S. in 2011 to do a PhD in applied linguistics. In that language learning. nowadays I work for a language testing company based in Eugene, Oregon called Avante Assessment, and we build tests in over 50 different languages. So living in these countries Brazil, Germany, Holland, United States, I also lived in India for a little while and learned a little bit of Marathi, one of the local languages.
00;12;21;29 – 00;12;48;28
Victor Santos
I lived in Israel and learned a little bit of Hebrew. came to the US, married a Ukrainian woman who is now my wife, had two children that from birth, have spoken three languages. So they speak Portuguese, my native language. They speak Russian, which is my wife’s native language. Despite being Ukrainian, as you know, a lot of Ukrainians, from the Soviet Union are very fluent or are native speakers of Russian and they were born here.
00;12;49;05 – 00;13;21;28
Victor Santos
So cultures and languages have always been part of who I am, really. and I always saw them as a window into the world and something that would expand my own possibilities in the world, open doors, etc.. So I think the book What Makes Us Human is sort of a culmination of all of these life experiences. My passion for languages, I’ve created materials for over 35 different languages in the past to help parents pass their languages on to their children.
00;13;22;00 – 00;13;48;11
Victor Santos
I’ve worked with you pick a bunch of stuff. so I think that’s kind of my passion. And like you said in the book, I almost looked at the book as sort of a one shot opportunity to bring the idea of the importance of language and languages to the general public into a single book. There are not too many chances where we can have an impact with just one work.
00;13;48;13 – 00;14;16;10
Victor Santos
And I think that through this, I. I’m having an impact that maybe I haven’t had with the other things that I’ve done so far. Right. So, for example, what makes us human has already been translated into Mapou Dongen, which is one of the biggest or it’s the biggest indigenous language in Chile. And the government just ordered 140,000 copies or something like that of the book for use in indigenous schools in Chile.
00;14;16;12 – 00;14;40;20
Victor Santos
So it’s really having an impact on the ground. it’s also been translated into Otomi, which is one of the indigenous languages of Mexico, and these are all editions that are being supported by the government itself. Right. So it’s really interesting to see that the book is having this direct impact with governments, but also with people who need those materials.
00;14;40;20 – 00;15;03;21
Victor Santos
So it’s not just literature at the end of the day, but the moment you translate the book into one of these languages that are, you know, as we refer to less commonly taught languages or endangered languages, it’s directly contributing to the preservation of those languages, you know, because you don’t have those many resources in the languages to start with.
00;15;03;23 – 00;15;26;13
Victor Santos
And as you said, I really wanted each one of the pages in the book to be sort of a subtheme of language. So, for example, the one you talked about where it says when you were a baby, you hardly know me. Over time, you’ve gotten to know me better and better, but when you are old, you may start to forget me.
00;15;26;15 – 00;15;52;27
Victor Santos
My intention here was to focus on language loss, and there are different ways we can look at that, right? One of which is, conditions like Alzheimer’s. You start getting old. Many people who have Alzheimer’s, they start losing their ability to use language. They start forgetting words. They have to start paraphrasing the most basic things. Right? So they might even forget the word for for tears.
00;15;52;27 – 00;16;13;26
Victor Santos
Rain. When you cry, you have tears. And they might call it, let’s say I water or something like that. Right? So but we can also talk about, for example, people who immigrated to the United States and they learned English. And when they get old and they start having some of these conditions, they revert back to their native language, the first language.
00;16;13;29 – 00;16;40;00
Victor Santos
And they can’t communicate in English anymore because that’s a more recent kind of memory. Right? So that page, for example, is about that, the one about, I can be as soft as a kitten or as harsh as the Alaskan winter. We are really talking about different languages, right? People perceive different languages as some languages are stronger. They have those guttural sounds that are harder to pronounce.
00;16;40;00 – 00;17;01;22
Victor Santos
They sound a little bit harsher. some other languages, you know, people talk about Italian. It’s so musical. It’s the language of love, you know, you don’t hear so many people saying, oh, Italian is a very harsh language, but it’s also within each language you have a more soft, caring way of communicating, and you can also communicate in a harsher way.
00;17;01;24 – 00;17;35;18
Victor Santos
This is intrinsic to each different language. Right. And it is important that we master all of these different types of communication because they are a means to an end, depending on what it is we’re doing. Okay. And you know, the the other one you talked about, I can show you love but also hurt you. People can see the book right now, but we have an illustration of a tank that is sort of shooting a cannonball, and there’s a city on fire, and there is a lady holding a sign that says no war.
00;17;35;20 – 00;18;01;03
Victor Santos
This is a direct reference to the war in Ukraine that Russia is is fighting right now against Ukraine after they invaded Ukraine. Right. If you remember, there was a, Russian journalist that held up, right, that sign No War during live television protesting against what Russia is doing to Ukraine. And it goes to show that what is happening there, this is one example, right.
00;18;01;05 – 00;18;23;24
Victor Santos
But it’s not just about territory, but what they’re doing is also an attack on Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture. So language permeates so many things in our lives. It’s driven wars, it’s driven love, it’s driven so many things that we just can’t get away from this beautiful thing we call language, right?
00;18;23;26 – 00;19;11;21
Norah Jones
We certainly cannot wouldn’t what an important integration of the material itself talking about. And I love the way you’re talking about this one shot, as it were, to be able to let people know what language is in a very accessible way. And you’re also integrating it with how languages get lost, your interest in and your work with indigenous languages and with the subtext of encouraging parents, grandparents and communities to support children becoming multilingual, to give them that superpower and those gifts.
00;19;11;24 – 00;19;44;02
Norah Jones
how what are some other steps that you have taken, other books that you have written, other things that you do that connect this knowledge of what language is then, and its importance in humanity with the power of multilingualism and what makes people afraid for their children becoming multilingual. In some in some communities, some families, some historical moments.
00;19;44;05 – 00;20;07;11
Victor Santos
Yeah. So I think that everything that I’ve done so far. Right, I’ve written nine books that have been published so far and they’ve been translated into over 30 different languages. And in the beginning I self-published books. Reign. So what makes us human? It’s a publisher that came out with the book. It’s, you know, part of the publishing industry.
00;20;07;13 – 00;20;37;06
Victor Santos
But my initial books, when I was still learning how to write, they were all self-published. But that gave me a lot of flexibility in terms of choosing the message that I want it to be out there, but also working with native speakers, of each language that I wanted to have the book available in to make sure that parents who were raising their children in, their various languages had enough materials to use to continue to pass those languages on.
00;20;37;06 – 00;20;58;25
Victor Santos
Right? So, as I told you, me and my wife, we have always spoken to our kids in our native languages, but we live in the United States. And yes, the US is the biggest melting pot in the world. And, you know, you probably have more diversity here than you do in any other country in terms of how many people come here or how many languages are spoken.
00;20;58;27 – 00;21;28;05
Victor Santos
But when you look at materials, when you look at resources for these less commonly taught languages, it is extremely hard to find. And I’m talking about languages like Russian and Portuguese, right, which are less commonly taught, but they have tens of millions of speakers and I found it hard to find materials that I could use with my children books, games in those languages, so we wouldn’t have to revert back to English.
00;21;28;05 – 00;21;49;17
Victor Santos
Right? So what I did initially was take, problems in to take matters into my own hand and start developing games. So, for example, I had a set of like flashcard games that I developed that were pretty innovative at the time because they were the first ones that had QR codes that had the pronunciation by a native speaker.
00;21;49;20 – 00;22;15;04
Victor Santos
And, you know, kids could practice writing, listening, speaking, reading in many different languages. So I ended up creating those flashcards to use with my son in Russian and in Portuguese at home. And then we had friends, you know, because we’re immigrants, foreigners, we are also connected to many other people who speak different languages. And they saw the materials and they said, oh, do you have that in Italian?
00;22;15;07 – 00;22;39;16
Victor Santos
Do you have that in Bosnian? So there’s a significant Bosnian population where I live here in Iowa, and I’m like, no, but it wouldn’t be that hard to create it because there was nothing like it around. So same thing with the books that I started writing. I just wanted to make sure that they could contribute to as many different people as possible, be available in as many different languages.
00;22;39;19 – 00;23;06;13
Victor Santos
so I think that’s kind of my contribution is ensuring that parents who want to pass their languages on to their children have the means to do so. So basically, what I’m doing is providing the materials, but also sort of the encouragement through my books, like what makes this human, but also the ones I’ve written before where, you know, language is a superpower.
00;23;06;13 – 00;23;30;09
Victor Santos
The more you speak, the more, power you have to communicate with people, get stuff done. It’s kind of trying to break a certain stigma that there is in society, that speaking a different language makes you odd. It makes you different. Something you should be ashamed of when actually it’s something that we should all be jumping with joy to celebrate, right?
00;23;30;12 – 00;23;52;26
Victor Santos
I have never encountered ever, a person at the playground. You know, we live very close to a playground and we’re always talking to our kids in different languages. I’ve never met a person that’s like, oh, that’s so bad that your kids speak different languages, right? And some of these people, come up to us and say, I wish my kids spoke more than one language.
00;23;52;28 – 00;24;32;04
Victor Santos
Right. So I think people understand, but it’s still something that needs a little bit more fine tuning for society at large to understand the advantages of bilingualism. Right. But things are moving in a positive direction with things like when I know of the seal of Biliteracy, right, which is a state level program actually passed into law, where high school students who show they are proficient in more than one language, in all four skills, they get a Seal on their high school diploma in some universities around the U.S are actually already accepting that as college credit.
00;24;32;06 – 00;24;49;14
Victor Santos
So now kids not only save money, but also they save time because they can actually study other things that will benefit them. And the language just becomes a means right. So I think that’s kind of, the way I’m trying to contribute, so to speak.
00;24;49;17 – 00;25;34;25
Norah Jones
You’re contributing beautifully. And thank you for it. Where are we headed as a country? You see movement in direction of of people. interesting there at the playground saying, I wish my children could as a larger society because languages are so integrated with the concept of identity. Where do you in your work see people realizing that the identity that is expressed through language can be an enhancement to others lives, rather than, if I may put it really baldly, here, threat of threat.
00;25;34;27 – 00;26;00;15
Victor Santos
I think it’s one of those things that the more positive examples that they see of people who speak more than one language, having advantages in their lives and being able to use those languages for positive, slowly, these other people who might think differently will start to understand that maybe their view is not completely correct. Right? So the way that usually there is a beautiful book called blink, right?
00;26;00;15 – 00;26;26;06
Victor Santos
Which is about, prejudice. And the best way for you to break prejudice is by being exposed to counterexamples of that prejudice that you have. So I think that with language, it’s, going to be pretty similar. It’s people reading books like what makes us human to start opening their minds, and then they start paying more attention to what’s going on around them.
00;26;26;08 – 00;26;56;13
Victor Santos
and they will they will be hard pressed to find examples of speaking another language being detrimental to who you are, to where you can go in life. Right? Sometimes we have these, inaccurate views in our minds, and some people refuse to look around for counter evidence. you know, that goes against the way they think. But and, you know, sometimes that you can’t really do much about those people.
00;26;56;13 – 00;27;22;12
Victor Santos
Some people just decide they don’t want to be proven wrong. And it’s hard. But I think the great majority of people, they just need to see more examples of the contrary. And I think that’s where the country’s kind of, going with more bilingual programs, appearing and, you know, immigrants, being proud of their heritage instead of being ashamed.
00;27;22;14 – 00;27;50;01
Victor Santos
And. Yeah, I think it’s, it’s a force for good. One other thing that I’d like to mention, if I may, Norah, is one thing that I’ve noticed with people who don’t travel abroad, especially English speaking people. Right. Because being a native English speaker is a bit of a blessing and a curse. You know that, right? Because it is the language that is the most widely spoken language in the world.
00;27;50;01 – 00;28;21;10
Victor Santos
It’s the the lingua franca that unites all of the other languages. Red it’s the Esperanto, so to speak, of the world. Esperanto wanted to replace English, but I don’t I don’t think it really will, because it’s missing that cultural baggage that, you know, all that history that comes with the language. So I think many people who speak English as a native language and have not traveled abroad, they think that they can simply go to foreign countries and start speaking English, and people will understand them.
00;28;21;12 – 00;28;44;07
Victor Santos
But people like us who have more experience traveling. So, for example, every year I go to Bologna in Italy because that’s where they have the biggest children’s book fair in the world. And this is where you have hundreds of publishers of children’s books from many different countries. And the whole fare is based on, negotiation of foreign rights.
00;28;44;14 – 00;29;04;02
Victor Santos
So somebody writes a book, the publisher is there trying to sell rights to the book. So let’s say it’s an Italian publisher. They want to sell rights to the book, to a Japanese publisher, who will then translate the book into Japanese, publish it in Japan, and even in Bologna, you’ll find so many people who do not speak English.
00;29;04;05 – 00;29;30;13
Victor Santos
Right. And you would think that this is a primal location where everybody would be conversant in English, but it’s not. So I think there is also this perception from many people. Going back to your question, right. Where’s the nation kind of, headed? I think that this is one thing that people have to understand that just speaking English, for example, it’s not a guarantee that you can go anywhere and be able to communicate.
00;29;30;14 – 00;29;49;18
Victor Santos
You’re going to hit many obstacles in many different countries where you’re going to find a large number of people that will not be able to understand you if you don’t speak the local language. Right. And even if you can communicate with them in your own language. I’m using English as an example, but it could be another major language out there.
00;29;49;20 – 00;30;10;23
Victor Santos
Even if you can communicate with them in your own native language, not having to learn theirs, you’re not going to be able to open all of those doors. You’re not going to have full access to who they are to the culture of the country. Unless you learn the language, the the ceiling is limited, so to speak, in your experience.
00;30;10;25 – 00;30;50;07
Norah Jones
Thank you for that clarity. It’s, it’s it is an encouragement you had are correct it in our exposure. You and I here as conversationalists today that our experiences of traveling in living in being a part of cultures that are outside of the mainland us, if I background have and a way of knowing, the variety, the welcome, the safety that comes from those other being engaged in other cultures and other languages, there’s not a threat there.
00;30;50;07 – 00;31;19;24
Norah Jones
And that that mood is part of what this book provides to and all everything that you’re saying. So thank you for that. I would like to say here, I would love to hear a story about young Victor Santos, how it became evident to you that you were excited about languages and studying languages and doing linguistic things. How did that come about?
00;31;19;27 – 00;31;23;10
Norah Jones
Tell a story about your young life.
00;31;23;12 – 00;31;43;20
Victor Santos
Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for asking. And I think you’re writing that with with most of us. Right. The experiences we have pretty young, they kind of define or they direct where we’re going to go and who we’re going to be in the future. So I was born in Brazil, and I started learning English at the age of ten.
00;31;43;22 – 00;32;23;01
Victor Santos
my mom put me in a private, English school, back when I was growing up. Unfortunately, in terms of public education and just having English classes or a foreign language classes in school, it wasn’t the greatest quality. So you had to go to a private school in order to get better. So it was ten. I was ten when I started learning English and, you know, from ten until, 17, I believe I was taking like three different courses at the same time at different levels, just because I loved being able to watch friends, you know, things that I wouldn’t be able to understand in my, my, my local language because it’s
00;32;23;01 – 00;32;48;03
Victor Santos
translated and you lose the meaning, etc.. But I remember very clearly when it was time to go to college, right at the time, you actually had to already know what you wanted to study before you took the test. So it was not like in the U.S where you have the SAT, this general test that everybody can take. And then after, you know, depending on your scores, you can go to med school, you can do whatever.
00;32;48;06 – 00;33;06;01
Victor Santos
In Brazil at the time I already had to know what I would like to be. Let’s say I wanted to be a lawyer and I would take the university test just for law school. If you want it to be, something else, you had to take a test just for that. And at the time, I didn’t really know what I wanted to be.
00;33;06;01 – 00;33;29;10
Victor Santos
Everybody was saying like, oh, you should do something with publicity because you’re extroverted and, you know, you’re like, communicating, etc. but I’m like, yeah, you know, just because you might be, somewhat good at something, it doesn’t mean it’s your passion. Right? So my mom sat me down and she said, what do you like in this life? And I said, I like languages.
00;33;29;12 – 00;33;48;27
Victor Santos
And she said, well, so here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to keep studying English and you’re going to have such a good command of this specific language that no matter what you decide to do, no matter what your profession is going to be down the line, it’s going to be useful for you. So it’s okay. You don’t have to go to college at 17.
00;33;48;27 – 00;34;16;03
Victor Santos
I actually went to college when I was 21, and from 17 to 21 I was basically studying English the whole time so that I had that tool in my arsenal right. and also we were part of the Rotary Club. You’ve heard of the Rotary Club. And I think that by the time I was 18, we probably had maybe over 12 exchange students live with us.
00;34;16;05 – 00;34;43;16
Victor Santos
So we had most of them came from the US. So I had the opportunity to use the language, use English with them. But we had people from India, people from Japan, and that gave me that early access to different cultures, using language to communicate with different people. Right. And I had this one cousin that was a doctor, always traveling to a different country and one of the highlights of my week was talking to him after he came back from a trip.
00;34;43;16 – 00;34;58;16
Victor Santos
And I’m like, tell me, what did you see? Where did you go? What did you learn? Right. So I think that that’s kind of the seed of my passion for languages and different cultures, and all the rest came from the positive experience I had growing up.
00;34;58;16 – 00;35;22;21
Norah Jones
And and you see there is that refreshing item again that we do not have to be learning languages in order to make sure that we don’t become ill, although languages help with that, or so that we can get the very best job ever, although languages help with that. But because languages bring fix problems, bring joy, connect with people, we can have fun.
00;35;22;23 – 00;35;52;27
Victor Santos
It doesn’t always have to be a utilitarian approach, right? I’m going to learn the language because I want to achieve this. I want to make more money or I want to move somewhere else. Just learning a language is such a fun brain exercise. And yes, there’s health benefits and everything, right? But one thing that I don’t hear people talk much when we talk about language learning is that it’s a very this is something that I’ve experienced, and I would bet that you’ve been there as well.
00;35;52;27 – 00;36;21;03
Victor Santos
You were telling me about your background, your heritage, background with Croatian. Right? When you speak a different language, you understand yourself in a different way. It’s almost like having another personality, right? It’s kind of hard to express, but the way I communicate in English or in French, for example, is different from the way I communicate in Portuguese. There are certain languages that I feel more confident in.
00;36;21;04 – 00;36;47;04
Victor Santos
So, for example, I feel more confident in English than I do in Portuguese. But if I’m talking about things that are very close to my heart, I’m going to go back to my native language. Right? So there is not necessarily a utilitarian view to this, right? Speaking different languages because you want to achieve something of, of financial benefit or something else, but it’s an opportunity for you to get to know yourself better.
00;36;47;06 – 00;36;55;06
Victor Santos
When you express yourself in different languages. It’s it’s it’s very interesting. It’s kind of tapping to a different side of yourself.
00;36;55;09 – 00;37;23;21
Norah Jones
It does indeed. I concur. And of course, we’ve read, anecdotal reports and, and others of people that have experienced that where, particular our, our language ex is touching our heart deeply, as you say. And I know that in my case that the Croatian that is in my mind, in my memory and speaking with the family was related to of a very, very traditional way of life, that much of which has disappeared.
00;37;23;23 – 00;37;45;24
Norah Jones
And I sort of feel like the guardian of it, in through the language, and that is cultural experiences that came through the language. How beautifully said. Where is Victor Santos headed next with regard to what do you want to tell the world about languages or what you want to do when the case with indigenous, what’s your next project?
00;37;45;24 – 00;38;21;06
Victor Santos
I think I definitely see myself in this common path of trying to make materials that I produce available in as many languages as possible. I think that this is sort of the contribution that I am able to make through my books, continue to ensure they’re translated into as many languages as possible, and making sure that people who speak other languages have as many materials available as possible if they decide to pass those languages on to their children.
00;38;21;06 – 00;38;50;01
Victor Santos
Right. Because what makes a language die? What causes language death? I mean, there is the extreme case of decimation, right? You might have an indigenous tribe that might have ten speakers, and, you know, everybody is unfortunately killed. And boom, that’s the end of the language right there. But the usual case for the majority of languages. Languages die when parents decide to no longer pass those languages to their children.
00;38;50;01 – 00;39;16;18
Victor Santos
And very quickly, in one generation, the language can lose a very large number of speakers. So right now in the US, for example, of the 175 indigenous languages that we have, only three have more than 10,000 speakers. I’m going to pause here because I want to ask listeners if they know what those three languages are. So Navajo, which was extremely important for the U.S from a national security standpoint as well.
00;39;16;18 – 00;39;41;11
Victor Santos
During World War two, it was one of the secret codes used by the U.S. during the war that allowed for a very specific battle to be one that made a big difference, to the war you pick spoken in Alaska. You had, Brendan Loch, for example, is one of your guests talking about the beautiful things he’s doing with Yup’ik and other languages in, the Anchorage School District in Alaska.
00;39;41;13 – 00;40;07;14
Victor Santos
And we have Apache, which is another indigenous language. Only three have more than, 10,000 speakers. And when you talk about, indigenous materials, you see a lot of books written by indigenous people. And you go to the website and you’re like, okay, so let’s get all these books in indigenous languages. But the great majority are books written in English by indigenous creators.
00;40;07;14 – 00;40;35;20
Victor Santos
They might be talking about, you know, creation myths. They might be talking about native stories, but it’s all in English. It’s not in the native language. So it’s very hard for you as a parent, as an educator, to want to ask children to learn or preserve their heritage language. When you don’t have materials, they look around. They don’t see representation in the books in terms of the characters, because all the characters look white, they don’t look indigenous.
00;40;35;22 – 00;40;56;04
Victor Santos
The books are not written in an indigenous language, so we can’t really blame these kids for thinking that speaking that language is not going to be a very useful tool for them. We have to change things by making sure there are more materials available out there. The kids want to read Harry Potter, they want to read Dogman. You know, when it’s fun.
00;40;56;04 – 00;41;16;08
Victor Santos
It’s not just because they might come from a different culture that they want to do things that are so different from the way kids in that other majority culture or language are doing. Kids or kids. Kids want to be entertained by beautiful stories. You know, they want to have fun. But if you don’t have those books translated in their languages, the only thing they can do is use English.
00;41;16;12 – 00;41;42;13
Victor Santos
As a parent of trilingual kids, I can tell you from experience that getting a book written in another language, right? And so, for example, me here in the United States with my kids getting a book written in English, in trying to translate during bedtime on the fly into a Portuguese is a very hard experience. No matter how proficient you are, you’re going to you’re going to make mistakes.
00;41;42;13 – 00;42;10;25
Victor Santos
You know it’s going to be cumbersome and kids will notice that, and they’re going to be starting to they’re going to start thinking, you know, it’s not as much fun when we read books in Portuguese, you know, dad talks more slowly, etc.. So you need to have those materials in the native languages, right? So I think that’s kind of where my path is going to continue creating stories that touch people and that are translated into, as many different languages as possible.
00;42;10;25 – 00;42;35;18
Victor Santos
They may not be stories about language per se. I last book is about Alzheimer’s. The whole book is about Alzheimer’s, right? It has nothing to do with language, but it has already been translated into Korean and Chinese. So I think that no matter what I do, I’ll continue writing books, because I believe in the power of books to touch children and change the minds of adults as well.
00;42;35;20 – 00;42;51;07
Victor Santos
I very much believe in that precious, sacred time of reading books with children and all the lessons in love that can be exchanged there. It’s easier to change minds when you are lying in bed with a book.
00;42;51;09 – 00;43;19;09
Norah Jones
That’s fantastic, and we will look forward to following you on that path and seeing what you do. Victor, before we leave this conversation today, please think of what you would like to re-emphasize to my listeners or say something that I did not ask you about, and you want to make sure that it’s heard, you want to exhort or invite whatever it is that comes to your heart and mind.
00;43;19;09 – 00;43;23;13
Norah Jones
Now that you want to make sure the listeners have from you.
00;43;23;17 – 00;43;50;07
Victor Santos
What makes us human. For example, one of the people that endorsed the book, so to speak, was Yalitza Aparicio. She was nominated for an Oscar for Best actress, in 2019 with, a book, a movie called Roma. And when I read when, when I saw her reading the book, it was something that it just made me aware of the impact that is happening.
00;43;50;07 – 00;44;17;13
Victor Santos
Right. It’s so nice to be able to do something that is fulfilling. And I don’t usually cry, but I cried that day just to know that what you’re doing is having an impact and something from my heart that I’d like to share with readers is just appreciate, language diversity. Appreciate diversity in general, because it’s something that we all need.
00;44;17;13 – 00;44;46;24
Victor Santos
The world is becoming more monocultural to some extent. And, you know, there is a declaration on cultural diversity from UNESCO, actually, from 2001, that says that cultural diversity is as important to humankind as biological diversity is, and languages are an integral part of cultural diversity. When a language dies, a whole culture can die with it as well. And that’s one thing that the book, reinforces.
00;44;46;24 – 00;45;12;16
Victor Santos
So I think from my heart it’s just, to ask people to think of the value of languages, be respectful when they meet somebody who speaks a different language, be curious about it. you know, ask them where they come from. What language is it? Everybody likes talking about themselves, you know, feeling. Feeling special. and just have an open mind.
00;45;12;16 – 00;45;43;27
Norah Jones
A healthy ecosystem has diversity within it to help, to balance and to provide for a variety of needs for a variety of living beings. And that certainly seems very much analogous to what happens with linguistic and cultural diversity. Victor, this has been a great pleasure. per your comment, we could go on for four hours of plumbing the insights that you have, and the experiences that you’ve provided and will continue to do.
00;45;43;27 – 00;45;52;04
Norah Jones
So it’s been just deeply moving and informative and especially inspiring. Thank you so much.
00;45;52;07 – 00;45;59;22
Victor Santos
It’s been my pleasure, Norah, and thank you so much for your podcast. I love what you’re doing. I love your guests and I think we’re all better off for it. Thank you so much.
00;45;59;22 – 00;46;29;09
Norah Jones
Thank you Victor. Take care. Thank you for listening to this conversation with my guest, Victor Santos. Check out my website, fluency.consulting, for more information about Victor and his work, and to order a copy of What Makes Us Human for yourself and for your public library. And until next time, be thinking, how have you observed that language indeed makes us human?
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