Achilles' Heel - Linguistic Security

[Dan Parvaz]

> URBANA, Ill. -- America has a problem of linguistic security: We don't
> understand the languages of our attackers. Just a week after the Sept.
> 11 terror attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was offering $38
> an hour for translators of Arabic or of Pashto, the language of about
> 35 percent of the people of Afghanistan, including the Taliban. Many in
> Afghanistan, where bilingualism is widespread, understand both.

Fact is, "we" don't know the languages of our friends. Or those of our
neighbors, for that matter, and most university-level Arabic students of
my acquaintance don't have the necessary competence to listen in on a
conversation and understand what is being said. The US's best resource
for Middle-Eastern languages are native speakers within the US.

Pound for pound, the Pakistani ISI has more Pashto speakers than any
other intelligence agency, and their relationship with the US hasn't
always been rosy.

The official languages of Afghanistan are Dari (Persian), and Pashto (an
Iranian language, but not mutually intelligible with Persian). Arabic is
the language of the "Arab-Afghan" mujahedeen who are part of Bin Laden's
Al-Qa'ida organization.

To drag this topic kicking and screaming back into the sign language
arena, chances are we can expect an influx of refugees and those seeking
political asylum. With these folks, there will be some who are Deaf.
When Cuban Deaf refugees started filtering into Albuquerque, there was
no one fluent in a sign language understood by the new arrivals; the
effects of this vacuum in services are being felt to this day. An
Afghani SL lexicon has been assembled by UNDP (and others?) in the
field, and should be made available reasonably soon.

Cheers,

Dan.

PS: Wanna learn Pashto? http://www.cal.org/pubs/pashto_p.html#MATERIALS
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