où passe un mot passe un monde

Hello

A French friend has asked me to translate the following phrase from the work of Thierry Renard into English ...

où passe un mot passe un monde

I'm stumped and would welcome any suggestions. The context is about the power of literacy to open a world of opportunity

Best wishes

Nigel

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EducatorPermalink Reply by George Hunt on May 28, 2013 at 3:28pm

No,Devas I agree with that myself (that a language encompasses a cultural understanding of the world and that it can transmit like a worm hole from one culture to another) .

It is just that I can't see that argument being used in this context (your context would be epistemiological I think -if that is the right word).

I can't see anyone advocating openly that developing countries (if that is the context) would benefit from being exposed to the developed world's culture (except as a two way street quite obviously and even then there are those who would argue for cultural insularity)

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Permalink Reply by Vedas on May 28, 2013 at 3:40pm

Ok then so we had a different context approach, I Googled (cursorily) on my end too and I gathered that it was what Thierry Renard was trying to say but I may be wrong.

I didn't find the sentence either, it's sure than more context would be helpful !

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Permalink Reply by Nigel John Jackson on May 28, 2013 at 6:04pm

Thank you all again and what a fascinating discussion! My command of French has improved immeasurably since I came to live in France but it is clear that I still have so much to learn.

By profession, I have sometimes faced written material (in English) in which the individual words are part of my working vocabulary but have been put together in a way that makes no sense at all to me (and English is my first language). Now, here we go in French! Each individual word is part of my vocabulary, but .....