FACTS OF THE MATTER – LANGUAGES

In 7 out of 19 countries researched by the Center of Applied Linguistics, children begin learning a foreign language by age eight.  Some European nations are considering a requirement to study four languages in school.

The United States does not require elementary or secondary school students to learn a foreign language.  Foreign-language study is required for high school graduation in about 10 states.  In 2008, 57 people earned a bachelor’s degree in Arabic language and literature from U.S. colleges.

Bilingual People are better than monolingual people at ignoring distractions, and a new study has fond that the more proficient someone is in a second language, the later the average onset of dementia.  A University of Chicago study found that those who make decisions while processing information in a second language are less likely to be affected by emotion-based cognitive basis.

A Yale University economics professor theorizes that speakers of languages with no explicit future tense, including German and Mandarin, are healthier and save more money than other people.

French and English have had equal status in Canada since 1867.  Papua New Guinea is the world’s most linguistically diverse country, with over 800 native languages.  North Korea is the least, with one.  Residents of Cook County, Ill., USA, home of Rotary International headquarters, speak 109 languages.  Illinois ranks first in the United States in the percentage of Lithuanian, Polish and Serbian speakers.

When Columbus arrived in the New World, people in the Americas spoke as many as 1,000 languages, with nine major language groups in North America alone.  A common system of sign language was widely used among Native Americans of the Great Plains, who spoke hundreds of distinct languages.

Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, USA, maintains online “talking dictionaries: for several endangered language, including Chamacoco (Paraguay), Ho (India), Siletz (Oregon, USA), and Tuvan (Siberia, Russia).One of the world’s 7,000 languages does out every two weeks, on average.

Microsoft is translating its operating system and software into endangered languages including Basque, Inuktitut, and Welsh.  Ninety percent of people in Paraguay can speak the country’s indigenous language, Guarani.

The United Nations has six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russiand, and Spanish.  Rotary International has one official language, English, and provides materials in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi, Japanese, and Korean.

-  Jenny LLakmani

the Rotarian, Rotary’s Magazine

September 2012