But there should be more options. There are over 6,000 languages being spoken today. Over six thousand languages! How many do I fluently speak?
One.
I do not propose that every high school should employ a speaker of every single one of these languages out there in the world (though that'd be amazing), but lets get back to those 6,000 languages floating out there. About 2,000 of them have less than 1,000 speakers. That's a little under a third of the world's languages! And I have many regrets involving the snippets of those languages which I have been able to wrap my hands around.
I regret not keeping up with my Spanish I've learned since the age of eight.
I regret not keeping up with the German that I learned for two solid years in Undergrad.
I regret not taking a bigger grasp on the opportunity I had when I was learning 'survival' Egyptian Arabic. Or following up and practicing my Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphs. My final regret, though, is not taking up the initiative to learn more Gàidhlig earlier on than now.
Throughout the 23 years of my small life I've accumulated bits and pieces of many many languages (six not including English, to be precise: Egyptian Arabic, Middle Egyptian, Spanish, German, Italian, and Gàidhlig - or Scottish Gaelic). Even some Swedish if you count the fact that I still remember how to sing "happy birthday" from Mr Schedin's seventh grade geography/social studies class or that one 30 minute lesson of Parisian French when I was 14. But I am sadly not fluent in any of them other than English.
Each time you learn a new language, even if it's just simple phrases like hello, welcome (ahlan wa sahlan [Egyptian Arabic]), how are you (Ciamar a tha thu? [Gàidhlig]), my name is/I am (Ich bin... [German]), or thank you (Grazie! [Italian]), a whole new part of the world is opened up to you. New songs, new people, new conversations, new countries, new shows, new books, new everything.
Often, I used to hear conversations that if you're in America, you should speak English.
And to be very frank and honest, that makes me quite angry. There is no official language of the United States of America. Even wikipedia, a sometimes unreliable source, says so. And that includes English. Of course, a college degree will increase accessibility to new languages, but that's not a feasible option for everyone. Personally, however, when I got to undergraduate, I had the opportunity to start new with a language and chose German, and I was actually pretty decent at learning! Soon, some Spanish even started to come back to me! Unfortunately, the less you practice, the less you retain, and now I'm at a point with both languages where my speaking skills have gone down the drain, and my reading and writing skills are average at best. Here in Scotland, I've been trying to find the time to learn Gàidhlig with the help of library books and some friends. I accidentally picked up some Italian because my friends in undergraduate were learning it and spoke to each other in it from time to time.
What I am saying is that living abroad has made me realize just how little American education opens up the realm of language. Many people I've met here are bilingual, or speak even more languages than that. More often than not, it is because the pure proximity to other countries has lead to its necessity, which is of course something that America can't really help... we aren't a country the size of say - Kansas, sitting around other similarly sized countries with borders that are fairly easily crossed. But we do have a plethora of languages, even native languages; we have the Caribbean and South America, Canada and Mexico, all nearby. And I think the mindset of 'only speaking English' in the States is something that venomously holds back language education from prospering at a younger age and with easier access.
Sometimes, I'm almost embarrassed that I only speak one language fluently.
But, I am glad to see a rise in bilingual schooling and education in some regions of the US and I hope it continues to grow until every child has the option of learning a second, or even third language. Over the course of this past year, language education is something I've really thought about and learned about more.
I suppose this post was more to rant about language education more than anything else, and to share my feelings on it, particularly in the States, but its been on my mind for the past few weeks quite frequently, and think it's important to share. I could throw stats out here about how bilingual job candidates have a higher change of getting hired, or how learning another language may keep Alzheimer's or memory loss at bay and keep your mind fit, or how cool it is to meet new people you could never talk to otherwise but instead I'll throw out this super cool video produced by Babbel, an online language service [kind of similar to Duolingo - which is also fantastic and FREE!].
Check it:
I regret not keeping up with the German that I learned for two solid years in Undergrad.
I regret not taking a bigger grasp on the opportunity I had when I was learning 'survival' Egyptian Arabic. Or following up and practicing my Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphs. My final regret, though, is not taking up the initiative to learn more Gàidhlig earlier on than now.
Throughout the 23 years of my small life I've accumulated bits and pieces of many many languages (six not including English, to be precise: Egyptian Arabic, Middle Egyptian, Spanish, German, Italian, and Gàidhlig - or Scottish Gaelic). Even some Swedish if you count the fact that I still remember how to sing "happy birthday" from Mr Schedin's seventh grade geography/social studies class or that one 30 minute lesson of Parisian French when I was 14. But I am sadly not fluent in any of them other than English.
Each time you learn a new language, even if it's just simple phrases like hello, welcome (ahlan wa sahlan [Egyptian Arabic]), how are you (Ciamar a tha thu? [Gàidhlig]), my name is/I am (Ich bin... [German]), or thank you (Grazie! [Italian]), a whole new part of the world is opened up to you. New songs, new people, new conversations, new countries, new shows, new books, new everything.
Often, I used to hear conversations that if you're in America, you should speak English.
And to be very frank and honest, that makes me quite angry. There is no official language of the United States of America. Even wikipedia, a sometimes unreliable source, says so. And that includes English. Of course, a college degree will increase accessibility to new languages, but that's not a feasible option for everyone. Personally, however, when I got to undergraduate, I had the opportunity to start new with a language and chose German, and I was actually pretty decent at learning! Soon, some Spanish even started to come back to me! Unfortunately, the less you practice, the less you retain, and now I'm at a point with both languages where my speaking skills have gone down the drain, and my reading and writing skills are average at best. Here in Scotland, I've been trying to find the time to learn Gàidhlig with the help of library books and some friends. I accidentally picked up some Italian because my friends in undergraduate were learning it and spoke to each other in it from time to time.
What I am saying is that living abroad has made me realize just how little American education opens up the realm of language. Many people I've met here are bilingual, or speak even more languages than that. More often than not, it is because the pure proximity to other countries has lead to its necessity, which is of course something that America can't really help... we aren't a country the size of say - Kansas, sitting around other similarly sized countries with borders that are fairly easily crossed. But we do have a plethora of languages, even native languages; we have the Caribbean and South America, Canada and Mexico, all nearby. And I think the mindset of 'only speaking English' in the States is something that venomously holds back language education from prospering at a younger age and with easier access.
Sometimes, I'm almost embarrassed that I only speak one language fluently.
But, I am glad to see a rise in bilingual schooling and education in some regions of the US and I hope it continues to grow until every child has the option of learning a second, or even third language. Over the course of this past year, language education is something I've really thought about and learned about more.
I suppose this post was more to rant about language education more than anything else, and to share my feelings on it, particularly in the States, but its been on my mind for the past few weeks quite frequently, and think it's important to share. I could throw stats out here about how bilingual job candidates have a higher change of getting hired, or how learning another language may keep Alzheimer's or memory loss at bay and keep your mind fit, or how cool it is to meet new people you could never talk to otherwise but instead I'll throw out this super cool video produced by Babbel, an online language service [kind of similar to Duolingo - which is also fantastic and FREE!].
Check it:
Auf wiedersehen!
Good perspective, Morgan. It is not to late to build your repertoire of languages :).
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