Thought For The Day – Thursday 24th September 2026
Languages Unite
Saturday the 26th of September is the annual “European Day of Languages”.
This important day is now in its 5th edition. The very appropriate theme for this year is: “Languages Unite: How Languages Shape Inclusion”.
This awareness day celebrates the cultural, and linguistic, diversity of Europe, including the languages of migrants.
Integral to the day, and life generally, is intercultural understanding.
The day also encourages people to develop plurilingual skills.
It is interesting to note that yesterday, the 23rd of September, was the International Day of Sign Languages, whilst the 30th of September is International Translation Day.
Language comes in many different forms, to include everyone. Accurate and faithful translation, whilst it can never fully do justice to the original language, can assist communication and learning, building important bridges of understanding.
The theme of International Sign Languages Day 2026 is: “Declaring deaf people’s human rights”.
In an excellent assembly yesterday, Mrs. Miles, and two Sixth Form students, eloquently, and thoughtfully, communicated the vital relevance of Languages, both for including, respecting, understanding, and living with, each other, and academically challenging and stretching ourselves.
Such diversity is very much inside, not just outside, The Bishop’s Stortford High School. As shared in the assembly, over forty languages, other than English, are spoken as a “first language” by students of the “Black and Gold”. T.B.S.H.S. is a microcosm of the wider society, and the world, it both replicates, and prepares, for.
This week, the Modern Foreign Languages department are continuing to wonderfully promote this crucial area of life with a diversity of activities which beautifully reflects, and includes, the diversity of the subject(s).
Thank you to Mr. Alexander, the M.F.L. staff, and the M.F.L. student leaders for all their outstanding work. Thank you to everyone, at home, in the community, and abroad, who has supported vital Cultural and Languages Exchanges over very many years.
Thanks to Mrs. Proud, yesterday, and Tuesday’s dates, in different languages, together with the interesting facts, for the five lessons of each day were as follows:
Wednesday, 23rd September
Lesson/Period 1: Polish: Środa, 23 września. Poland’s name comes from the tribe Polanie, which means “people living in open fields”.
Lesson/Period 2: Romanian: Miercuri, 23 septembrie. Romanian is the only major Romance language in Eastern Europe. It preserves core Latin grammar (like noun cases) lost by other Romance languages.
Lesson/Period 3: Swedish: Onsdag 23 september. Swedish has a concept called “Fika”. This is a mandatory daily break for coffee, pastries, and social conversation with colleagues or friends.
Lesson/Period 4: Turkish: Çarşamba, 23 Eylül: Turkish uses vowel harmony, meaning vowels within a single word change to harmoniously match each other in tone and origin.
Lesson/Period 5: Swahili: Jumatano, 23 Septemba. Swahili is a “lingua franca” across East Africa. It incorporates many loanwords from Arabic due to historical coastal trade.
Tuesday, 22nd September
Lesson/Period 1: Mandarin Chinese: 9月22日 星期二 (Jiǔ yuè èrshí’èr rì, Xīngqī’èr). Mandarin has no alphabet; it uses thousands of unique characters. “Tuesday” translates literally to “Week Day Two”.
Lesson/Period 2: Moldovan: Marți, 22 septembrie. Moldovan is linguistically identical to Romanian. Since 2023, Moldova’s parliament formally renamed the country’s official state language “Romanian.”
Lesson/Period 3: Dutch: Dinsdag 22 september. Dutch is considered one of the easiest languages for native English speakers to learn because structural roots and vocabulary are shared.
Lesson/Period 4: Modern Greek: Тρίτη, 22 Σεπτεμβρίου (Tríti, 22 Septemvríou). Greek has the longest documented history of any living Indo-European language, spanning over 34 centuries of written records.
Lesson/Period 5: Portuguese: Terça-feira, 22 de setembro. Portuguese is the official language of nine countries across four continents. This includes Brazil, Mozambique, and Angola.
What will the “lesson date languages” of today, and tomorrow, be at The Bishop’s Stortford High School?
