The Year 2005 has been designated as the Year of Languages in the United States, “a nationwide observance designed to focus attention on the critical importance of language learning” (CAL website). Under the leadership of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), schools across the country will observe the year with special cultural and literary events.

The goal of The Year of Languages is to make people aware of the important role that languages play in our lives, in society, in the global economy, and in international relations. Both the US Senate and Massachusetts have issued proclamations making it official.

Foreign Language study in the United States has always lagged behind that of countries where a language of wider communication didn't happen to be spoken. According to the census, 9.3% of Americans can speak a second language fluently, whereas 52.7% of Europeans can.

In other countries compulsory foreign language study starts at age 11 or 12 and goes on until graduation from high school and students may even have to take two foreign languages. In the United States foreign language study tends to be less intensive, of a shorter duration, and less of a requirement. According to a 2002 survey by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, in 2000 "almost seven million students in American public secondary schools were enrolled in foreign language courses in grades 7-12," which represents only 33.8% of total enrollment. Of these, 92% are studying Spanish (68.7%), French (18.3%) or German (4.8%), and 8% are studying other languages, e.g. Italian (1.2%) and Latin (2.7%).

The situation is not much better in US colleges. Most students do not take a foreign language courses. According to a Modern Languages Association 2002 study, of the 15.6 million college students in the US in Fall 2002, 1.35 million (8.6%) were enrolled in foreign language study. By the way, here too Spanish is the main language studied (53.4%), followed by French (14.5%), German (6.5%), Italian (4.6%), and American Sign Language (4.4%). Only 2-4% of students take Japanese, Chinese and Latin courses.

Is this situation something that we should be concerned about? One can always argue that the US is a highly multilingual country, which is true. According to the 2000 census, 176 languages are spoken in the US as mother tongues: For 215 million (82%) it is English, but for almost 11% it is Spanish (6.2% in Massachusetts) (all other 174 languages account for the other 7%, with Chinese, French, German, Italian, Tagalog and Vietnamese all having between one and two million speakers). This is due, no doubt, to the high percentage of immigrants in the US. But let's not forget that the children of immigrants tend to lose their language after between one and two generations, even faster now than ever in the past, and that applies to Hispanics too.

But the main reason why we don't study foreign languages as much as other countries is probably that we don't have to, since we happen to speak a language, English, that is the lingua franca of the whole world and the language that most of those students in other countries study. So there's nothing to worry about, right?

Not so fast. We are indeed missing out on something. The US Senate Proclamation tells us, for instance, that there are cognitive advantages to studying a foreign language, for it increases students “cognitive and critical thinking abilities,” as well as their ability to “compare and contrast cultural concepts.” National security advantages are also often mentioned. Since September 11 that the US has been having a difficult time finding people with language skills for many languages, which has resulted in poor intelligence gathering. But the main thing that can move people to action is economic advantage, and here too there is a strong case to be made for studying foreign languages in this shrinking and rapidly globalizing world. A US Government organization (NVTC) has put it quite well in its website, noting that the language learning is just the beginning, and that it’s all about getting to know different people and different cultures. They write: “foreign language study provides the ability to gain an understanding of the cultures of U.S. trading partners. American multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations need people with foreign language abilities. U.S. ability to compete effectively in global markets means that more and more businesses deal with companies in other countries. They need employees who can communicate in foreign languages and understand other cultures. An employer will see you as a bridge to new clients if you know their language.”

So, if you haven’t done so yet, celebrate the Year of Languages and pass on the word. Language study is important!

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Other pages

• US Senate Proclamation
• Massachusetts YOL Proclamation

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Important links

ACTFL sponsored site for YOL 2005
http://www.yearoflanguages.org

Interesting pages you don't want to miss:
News Radio Program: Talkin' About Talk
http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3963
Foreign Language Enrollments in Public Secondary Schools, Fall 2000 http://www.actfl.org/files/public/Enroll2000.pdf

Center for Applied Linguistics: YOL page
http://www.cal.org/yol/index.html

National Virtual Translation Center Languages of the World Website http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/

Interesting pages you don't want to miss:
Learn about a language family and about the major languages that belong to it. At the end of the month, take a quiz on what you have learned.
http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/families.html

Language Study Questions
http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/languageStudy.html

Questions about Language
http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/aboutLanguage.html

Governmental Interagency Language Roundtable
http://www.govtilr.org/

University of Wisconsin-Madison Language Institute
http://languageinstitute.wisc.edu/yearoflanguages/

European Day of Languages 2005
http://www.ecml.at/edl

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