B530 <=> B532 (BTG XXXI Last sojourn to Earth, p. 531)

“In the beginning I devoted all the time I had free from observations and investigations concerning the chief aim which I had set myself for this time, to the study of languages there, in order to have greater possibilities of better establishing everywhere corresponding relations with the beings of all ‘types,’ belonging to every kind of their ‘peoples’ there.

“Maybe, my boy, you do not yet know that it is also on this ill-fated planet only that there exists the excessive absurdity which consists in this: that there for mutual ‘spoken relations’ among themselves, again thanks to the abnormal external conditions of their ordinary existence, there are as many diverse languages or ‘dialects’ that have nothing in common with each other as there are separate independent groups into which they have gradually become split; whereas on all other planets of our Great Universe where three-brained beings breed, there is everywhere one common what is called ‘sound-manifesting-mutual intercourse.’

“Yes . . . and this ‘polyglotism’ is also one of the characteristics and exclusive particularities of these strange three-brained beings who please you.

“And there for every scrap of terra firma, or even for each insignificant independent group accidentally separated from each other upon such a scrap, there was formed by these strange beings, and there still continues to be formed, for ‘spoken relations’ a quite separate speech.

“Thanks to this, it now happens there on the planet Earth that if one of the inhabitants of any locality of this planet by chance finds himself in another place of the same planet, he has no possibility whatever of intercourse with the beings there similar to himself, unless he learns their language.