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Language flap misses the mark
July 17, 2008
I’m late on blogging on this, but, having recently returned from an international business and vacation trip, I was dumbstruck by the reaction to Obama’s comments that American parents might be well advised to encourage their children to study foreign languages. According to ABC News, Obama’s comments“…prompted outrage from some conservative groups who argued his remarks were an endorsement of the idea that Americans should be forced to learn Spanish. Americans for Legal Immigration PAC posted Obama’s comments on their website with the headline: ‘Voters Reject Obama’s Call for Bilingualism.’”
As the blogger Digby puts it, “Have we really dumbed ourselves down so much in this country that presidential candidates have to apologize for saying that children should learn things?”
Most of the commentary misses the mark completely. Consider this from Rasmussen Reports: “A national telephone survey conducted last month by Rasmussen Reports found that US voters overwhelmingly disagree with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Eighty-three percent (83%) place a higher priority on encouraging immigrants to speak English as their primary language. Just 13% take the opposite view and say it is more important for Americans to learn other languages.”
But here is what Obama said: “We should be emphasizing foreign languages in our schools from an early age.” Nowhere that I can find did he say that it’s not important for immigrants to learn English. In fact, I agree with the 83%--I think it’s much more important for an immigrant to learn English that it is for me to learn another language. But that’s not to say I shouldn’t make the effort.
Americans—including many frequent travelers—often point out that English speakers needn’t learn other languages because people in foreign countries speak English. That’s true to a point, and English does tend to be the international language of business. But it’s also true that—in this era of globalization—most companies want to employ people proficient in the languages of the countries they want to sell into. And it’s not just businesses that prefer language proficiency. The US House Armed Services oversight and investigations subcommittee heard last week that military personnel need more language skills—and that those skills are best learned in elementary school.
Posted by Rick Nelson on July 17, 2008 | Comments (5)
