Multilingualism has many advantages

[Courtesy]

As I mentioned in this newspaper a few months ago, I first served as a diplomat in Kenya in the early nineties, as an attaché at the Swiss Embassy. If I was asked what I most enjoyed during that early service in Kenya, it would be almost impossible for me to decide – I really had a wonderful time here.

But if queried what my greatest regret was, that would be easy: I regret that I did not set aside time to master the Kiswahili language, and to go beyond the few Kiswahili phrases that I know. This is because I appreciate the advantages of multilingualism. In Kenya and Switzerland, most of the population can speak different languages.