It is said that knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom. That it’s the road map of a culture. To speak another language has been likened to possessing another soul. I try conjuring such heightened enlightenment, no doubt fought for by our ancestors, but it stealthily escapes me as we walk through the small medieval German town of Buttenheim. The cobblestones of the 16th century, born from an earlier Karl the Great decreed superhighway, tell the story of a bygone hustle of trafficking and trading,…