So I’m minding my own business, reading The Washington Post, when I come across this piece. There, I find probably the second time ever that I’ve agreed with our beloved president.
President Bush announced plans yesterday to boost foreign-language study in the United States, casting the initiative as a strategic move to better engage other nations in combating terrorism and promoting freedom and democracy.
“This program is a part of a strategic goal, and that is to protect this country,” Bush said.
The plans, which represent an expansion of some programs and the start of a few others, aim to involve children in foreign-language courses as early as kindergarten while increasing opportunities for college and graduate school instruction. They also would draw more linguists into government service and establish a national corps of language reservists available to the Pentagon, State Department, intelligence community and other agencies in times of heightened need.
Much of the instruction is intended to focus not on the traditional European and Latin American languages that Americans have tended to study most, but on what the U.S. government has identified as languages “critical” for national security. These include Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi and Farsi, among others.
Bush intends to request $114 million in fiscal 2007 for the programs, which involve the departments of State, Education and Defense, as well as the director of national intelligence, according to officials who briefed reporters on details.
. . .
Bush portrayed the enhancement of foreign-language skills as a way of enlarging U.S. capacity to spread democracy. “You can’t convince people unless you can talk to them,” he said.
He described learning somebody else’s language as a “kind gesture” showing care for another culture. It would be a way to combat the notion that the United States is bullying in imposing its concept of freedom, he said.
“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,’ ” Bush said.
Some of the programs outlined yesterday appeared to carry specific targets, according to a State Department fact sheet. The National Flagship Language Initiative, for instance, hopes for 2,000 advanced speakers by 2009. The Pentagon-sponsored Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps is aiming for 1,000 volunteers in several years.
Holy crap. Language education? Paid for by our tax dollars !?!? That’s fucking incredible. I’m glad that the government has finally figured out that we ought to learn some languages. Maybe they’d stop hating us if we could speak their language.
A quick search on the “National Flagship Language Initiative” yields this site, which tells me that if you go to the University of Maryland, you can learn Persian:
Flagship students will effectively be able to live in a Persian-speaking environment during their time at Maryland, with a minimum of five hours a day of structured language learning experiences, plus additional language exposure through various combinations of peer tutors (Persian native speakers matched with Flagship students in the same academic or career field) and faculty mentors, a dedicated Persian study area filled with Persian multimedia resources, and a rich variety of visiting speakers, field trips, and other formal and informal cultural experiences. The capstone experience for Flagship students will be Persian immersion — a year of specialized study and/or internships in a Persian-speaking environment as yet to be determined, possibly including an overseas experience.
Upon completing 18-credits, Persian Flagship Program students will receive a Certificate of Professional Studies in Persian from the University of Maryland . Full funding is available to qualified students willing to make a two-year commitment to government service. Small stipends will be available to some others.
That’s pretty rad. It’s like ROTC, but for languages. I might consider doing this in the future.
