Posted on 01/07/2006 12:19:10 AM PST by nickcarraway
American children will now learn Hindi -- and for a good reason. The Bush administration thinks that learning Hindi and a few other foreign languages is a "critical need" for the US's national security and prosperity.
President George W. Bush on Thursday unveiled a $ 114 million plan, called the "National Security Language Initiative". Apart from Hindi, the languages being courted are Chinese, Russian, Arabic and Farsi. "This programme is a part of a strategic goal, and that is to protect this country," Bush told a conference of more than 120 US university presidents.
A request is to be sent to the US Congress to include it in the funding for fiscal 2007 (beginning October).
Bush cited another compelling reason for the initiative. The US, he said, could shed its image of a "bully" in the post-9/11 world if more Americans could speak a foreign language. "When Americans learn to speak a language, learn to speak Arabic, those in the Arabic region will say, 'Gosh, America's interested in us. They care enough to learn how we speak'," he said.
A State Department fact sheet said the initiative would dramatically increase the number of Americans learning the identified foreign languages "through new and expanded programmes from kindergarten through university and into the workforce".
Traditionally, much of the focus on foreign language instruction in US schools has been on European and Latin American languages.
The programme will also draw more linguists into government service and establish a national corps of language reservists readily available to the Pentagon, the State Department and the intelligence community.
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Sheesh.
They're hiring translators, not teaching kids. And they should be more focused on Urdu, frankly.
Other than a few loan words, Hindi and Urdu are identical in most respects, except for the script. Hindi uses the ancient Devanagiri script, which runs right to left, like the other Indo-European languages, while Urdu uses the Arabic/ Islamic-Persian script, suitably modified, and it runs from left to right.
Is this serious, or a parody?
WTF??? Do Arabs care enough to learn English? Is this really what the Prez said? I saw part of it on Fox News, but don't remember anything about kids learning these languages in future. Some American kids not learning a foreighn language is NOT why the crap that is going on now is happening. Learning of any kind is good, but jeez come on.
Hindi? The one gift the British occupation gave India was a common language. Prior to that there were some 1100+ dialects, many of whom could not commmunicate with one another. Farsi, Arabic, etc., I can understand.
As per post 5: is this even real? I am very drunk right now after having an interesting night at the bar. And yes, lately I am trying to "escape reality" by getting drunk. What happens or is allowed to happen these days is stranger than anything I can imagine while drunk.
Thanks. That's good info.
President's Remarks at U.S. University Presidents Summit on International Education
Brace yourselves this is long-term.
And I hope you haven't confused Urdu for Arabic. They are totally different, except for the script. Sort of like writing French in Japanese(or Russian) characters.
Where do we enroll for classes?
Oh, I knew it was similar to Hindi in structure, but it's the language of Pakistan and northern India.
Gotta have people to weed through the backlog of NSA intercepts. Translators wanted!
Yes. More accurately, the language of the Muslims of Pakistan and northern India.
LOL
I'm still not totally adept at TYPING the language yet.
Good one. :)
Ugh, so apparently Condi is one of the forces -- if not the main force -- pulling the President and the administration to the left?
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