"Language is the roadmap of a culture." No, I absolutely do not agree with this statement. When I first saw it, I thought, oh this looks just like some neat, slick slogan produced by some language teacher/ writer/ philosopher. I wasn't far wrong: it was coined by some American writer of mystery novels sometime in the last century - nobody I had ever heard of... The thing is, it sounds plausible, it sounds true, it sounds meaningful, but in reality it is a meaningless quotation, which probably looks good on the wall of a university dorm room of someone studying language or literature. People will look at it and say: yeah yeah!!, that's right; that's so deep!!; I never thought of language like that before!!... But think about it a bit more carefully: 1) what is language? 2) what is a road map? 3) what is culture? Only when you have answered these questions could you you decide whether or not you agree. The problem is different people will have different answers. I learned the French language for many years in the UK, and to be honest all my years of learning were fairly useless in helping me to 'understand the culture' (art, music, literature, philosophical approaches to life, social conventions, polite formulas, understanding social hierarchies, etc. etc. etc.) when I went there to live aged 20 for a period of 10 years. The language learning of course helped me along my learning journey, but it was certainly not what I would describe as a 'road map'. I think that's just wishful thinking... Then, of course, there is the tricky question of how you define 'culture', and what is included in that term. I think I will leave that question for another day. Anyway, as I think I said, my answer is 'no' 🙂 Of course, if other people have a different opinion and want to discuss this topic, that could be a great opportunity for a lively and interesting debate. AND an opportunity to practise 'language'...👍we'll see...

Since I don't know what it means, and I am not sure that it actually means anything, I can't agree. Art is part of culture, but I find it very difficult to see how someone could look at the paintings of (say) Jackson Pollack and Pablo Picasso and say "You can tell just by looking at them that Pollack spoke English and Picasso spoke Spanish." Furthermore, it seems to me the paintings of (say) Mary Cassatt, who spoke English, and Renoir, who spoke French, show much more cultural similarity than the paintings of Mary Cassatt and Andy Warhol, who both spoke English.

I disagree. This is a claim that is sometimes used by racist xenophobes. Example: "If you can't speak English, then you shouldn't be living in England." Or: "You can't be a real Spaniard if you can't speak Spanish."