The importance of languages

I write daily in English, Swedish and German. At least. Often also in Finnish and Spanish. And I have noticed lately how many words are missing from the English language.

If you count the number of words in English, it might lead you to think the language is very rich, but this is not the case. Sure, there are twice as many words in English than Swedish, but at the same time there are som many things that lack a word in English. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there a word for "snuvig"? No, you need to say you're having a runny nose. Förkyld? You're cold. Very ambiguous, if you ask me.

So, all these words in English, what are they for? They're all synonyms! A waste, I'd say. Sure enough, it's nice to choose a word that exactly tells you something, but what good is that when there are so many things you can't tell at all...

So, English is a poor language. If you take that another step - does that make the English-speaking people poor too, mentally? Might be provocative, but I'd say yes. This is of course not limited to English, I'd say everybody who knows more than one language has an advantage.

Why? Because the language stops you, it limits your creative thinking. If there are things without words, those things don't exist. I was raised speaking two completely different languages (Finnish and Swedish), then three (you hear English on TV and everywhere in Sweden), then four (a second language education used to start in 7th grade), and all these languages expands your mental horizon - you realize there are other ways to say the same thing, other views on the same phenomenon. We're all so different but still so alike.

This would explain why the sociaties using English (Great Britain and the USA) are so conservative and seem to have a hard time to think outside the box.