A global perspective on why the U.S. should invest in language learning:
…Not everyone is on the English bandwagon—by some estimates, 75% of the world does not speak English.
Let’s explore some of the policies other countries have regarding English—and why they matter to the U.S.
EDWeek: Foreign Language Policies: Is Everyone Else Really Speaking English?
English isn’t enough. As the firm’s public face, CEOs are expected to reflect the local culture, including the language, which is important at a time when the growing dominance of English can breed resentment at home.
Bloomberg Business: Global CEOs Who Lack Language Skills Get Lost in Translation
A stark contrast:
The typical European pupil must study multiple languages in the classroom before becoming a teen. Studying a second foreign language for at least one year is compulsory in more than 20 European countries… Meanwhile, the U.S. does not have a nationwide foreign-language mandate at any level of education. Many states allow individual school districts to set language requirements for high school graduation, and primary schools have very low rates of even offering foreign-language course work.
Pew Research Center: Learning a foreign language a ‘must’ in Europe, not so in America
There are at least 7,102 known languages alive in the world today. Twenty-three of these languages are a mother tongue for more than 50 million people. The 23 languages make up the native tongue of 4.1 billion people. We represent each language within black borders and then provide the numbers of native speakers (in millions) by country. The colour of these countries shows how languages have taken root in many different regions. Infographic from the South China Morning Post.
Today is International Mother Language Day, which has been observed since 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.
The date represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh.
Language Opportunity 