Learning foreign language matters

[Francis Hult]

The Brown and White: Lehigh University's Student Newspaper

 

Learning foreign language matters

 

Feb. 21 is International Mother Language Day, and it debuts the United Nations International Year of Languages. Who cares, right?

The loss of linguistic diversity is the loss of opportunity. Language carries culture, which determines how we interpret information. Life through the lens of English is not the same as through the lens of Québécois or Swahili.

Each time the last speaker of a language dies, so does that unique interpretive ability.

My brother-in-law told me Hebrew is one of few resurrected languages. But does Modern Hebrew represent the culture of Hebrew past?

 

Full story:

http://media.www.thebrownandwhite.com/media/storage/paper1233/news/2008/02/19/Opinion/Column.Learning.Foreign.Language.Matters-3216833.shtml

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