To celebrate the launch of their programme in multilingualism the University of Groningen and the University Campus Fryslân organised a seminal event entitled: Multilingualism: The Key Debates on 12 and 13 September 2013. One of the most exciting parts of this event were the debates held between eight internationally acclaimed experts about pivotal issues concerning language and multilingualism. The event was sponsored by the Province of Fryslân, the Royal Dutch Academy for Science and Språkåret 2013. Does a 'poisson' look different to a 'fish'? Do only native Dutch speakers truly understand what 'gezellig' means? If a language does not have a word for 'self-consciousness', would this then mean that its speakers do not have such a particular cognitive faculty? In other words, does language shape the way we think, or does the way we think shape language? Related to this, does learning a new language change our view of the world we live in? Geoff Pullum from the University of Edinburgh and Guillaume Thierry from Bangor University were asked to consider these longstanding and provocative questions for their debate on Language and Thought. This debate was one of four debates at the Multilingual Fryslân conference, which was held on the 12th and 13th of September 2013 in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. The moderator of the debate was Professor Frans Zwarts of the University Campus Fryslân. The video that Guillaume Thierry showed to introduce his talk was a short clip from the film "The Devil Wears Prada". In this scene a decision has to be made between two similar belts and Andy ("the new assistant") sniggers because they look exactly the same, upon which Miranda Priestly (the "boss" of the fashion magazine) finely remarks that the sweater Andy is wearing is not just blue, not turquoise, not lapis, but actually cerulean. Want more information on this new, exciting program? Visit: http://www.rug.nl/masters/multilingualism/ http://ucf.nl/