Speak. Don't silence. English Speech. Emily Salamanca.

“Nossen Thewes, cur tu es Delbes Schwiz gesger thowes Wardes. Penag mynys thowe Mystalstibe, Toppes Pratres giriad Delbszisne, tade tymnes sennes Worsinny. Dodi momines an nosse igdenas Magse.” Gibberish, or at least the way I am saying it. My accent for Old Prussian could be improved, obviously, but why should it? Why should I, or anyone for that matter, bother to learn languages that have disappeared off the face of the Earth? Today, there are 6,909 languages, according to Dr. Stephen R. Anderson from Cambridge University. I’m not quite sure how he arrived at that exact number, but he presents a more intriguing fact: Last month, November 2014, there were 6,911 languages spoken around the world. In 100 years, there will be maybe 691, maybe. This brings up an interesting point - who cares? Well, we should, because not only has the globalization of our language brought about this lack of language diversity, but it has also impeded our acquisition of knowledge from other cultures.

1620 - The pilgrims were struggling with their first few years in the ‘New World’. They were unfamiliar with the climate, soil, and had general homesickness. Instead of adapting to their surroundings and getting to know those who lived around them, they instead tried to civilize the ‘savages’. In one such case, a woman was trying to teach a Native American, Tisquantum, better known as Squanto, to plant crops in rows, like the English always had. Tisquantum instead began to teach the woman of how to plant crops the way Native American always had. It was she who, in the end, learned all the farming techniques of the local plants and their medicinal uses. But how did Squanto get all that knowledge? From his parents, and their parents, and so far back. It is incredibly important to communicate over generations, but today, these kinds of languages are dying at an unparalleled rate.

Right now, English is the undisputed global language, and it has been ever since the Pilgrims arrived. Now, English is exported around in the world. Beginning in the 1960s, the United States began sending teachers to countries like Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. These countries needed English to modernize and to liberate their nations through education. And, of course, the United States benefitted from some of the oil wealth as well, so perhaps the motives weren’t purely altruistic. However, English instruction has morphed from being a symbiotic exchange to a monstrous global business practice. No longer is it just a required foreign language on the school curriculum. We have monopolized the world, so that the only way anyone can become successful is by learning English.

According to USNews’s Education Report, the 5 best colleges of 2015 are the University of Oxford, Stanford University, the University of California-Berkley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard, ranking number one. All of these colleges are found in either the UK or the US. Thus, everyone wants an English education. But, if English is not your native language, then you have to pass a test. Is it right to test a student solely on linguistic ability? Does a computer programmer need the same English skills as a lawyer? We treat them as if they are obviously not of use to us if they don’t speak English. Naturally, we naturally stop them in their tracks. But why would we stop a monolingual Indonesian girl, who has the cure for breast cancer, from pursuing her dreams purely because she struggles with the different forms of ‘there’? English teachers become gatekeepers; they decide if your English is good enough to go or not to go at all.

I love English. We need a global language more than ever, but we use it as a barrier. Do we really want to end up with 600 languages, the dominant one being English? The system currently in place equates real intelligence with based knowledge of English, which is completely arbitrary. In fact, many scholars that we look up to never had to pass any English exams. Take Einstein, for example. He was, in fact, dyslexic, but fortunately for him and the rest of the world, he was never required to pass a test in English. These English tests began in 1964 with TOEFL, the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Today, each English speaking country has its own variant of this test. These tests, according to Kasia Mikoluk of Innovations for Poverty Action, cost about $150 to $250. This may seem like very little, but these fees are so prohibitive to so many thousands of millions of gifted people. Immediately, we’re rejecting them.

Yes, I know there are counterarguments. ‘The research is all in English though!” This is a self-fulfilling prophecy because all of this English research feeds the English requirement. Instead, we should invest in translation. Take the Islamic Golden Age, for example. They translated from Latin or Greek into Arabic or Persian, then later translated to languages like Old Prussian, and eventually, to English. Because of translation, light shone upon the dark ages of Europe. But ‘English gives people the best chance in life because if they have a western education, then they will get best jobs!’ Yes, but this is a circular system. As more students are becoming educated in English, they find jobs in English, and teach their kids English. The cycle goes on and on.

In 1928, Sir Gavin de Beer, Director of the British Museum of Natural History, was doing research on the front legs and hind legs of animals. However, his research did not directly correlate with the data he had obtained from various labs. His German-speaking colleague, Dr. Julian Huxley, then indicated to him that the German language did not differentiate between the front and hind legs. The genetics did not differ and neither did the German. English could not think that thought, but German could. By working together, we can learn and achieve so much more.

When I went to France over the summer, I had to go to school with my French counterpart, Victoria. Although not pleased about having to sit through ‘les mathématiques,’ I took it for what it was worth. They were teaching a form of slope that I have never learned before in the United States. Now, although the form is now common knowledge for anyone who is in Mrs. Deweese’s classes, it just shows how we may not be giving the credit deserved to those ESL students, who know so much more in their native languages. Similarly, when a language dies, we don’t know what knowledge we are burying forever.

Communication is essential to our development as a species. A 16-year old from India, Arsh Shah Dilbagi, took note of this in the creation of his invention, which converts human breath into Morse code then into words. This device will transform the lives of an estimated 1.4 percent of the world's population who have conditions that prevent them from communicating verbally. This device can also be used for translation from breath into any language that uses the Latin alphabet. This simple device has incredibly far-reaching uses in society today. We need to think like him, outside the language barrier.

473 languages are critically endangered, meaning the youngest speakers of the language are 65 years or older and use of the language is sporadic. English has facilitated this demise because it has become a base language in the world economy through establishment of mandatory fluency tests, which do not accurately document culture, knowledge, or diversity. We must not be silent about this issue. We need to mind our own language and use it to spread ideas, not to silence them.

Bibliography

1. Davies, Nick. "Education - The Great Divide." Education in Crisis. The Guardian, 6 Mar. 2000. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/education/2000/mar/06/educationincrisis.uk>.
2. Scherker, Amanda. "16-Year-Old Invents A New Way To Communicate -- Using Only Your Breath." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 12 Sept. 2014. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/12/teen-google-science-fair-breath-speech_n_5811448.html>.
3. Lewis, Paul, Gary Simons, and Charles Fennig. "Summary by Language Status."Ethnologue. SIL International, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. <http://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/status>.
4. Richards, Norvin. "MIT Indigenous Language Initiative." MITILI Home Page. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. <http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/mitili/>.
5. Anderson, Stephen. "Linguistic Society of America." How Many Languages Are There in the World? Linguistic Society of America, 1 Dec. 2014. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. <http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-many-languages-are-there-world>.
6. Mikoluk, Kasia. "Citi IPA Financial Capability Research Fund." Citi IPA Financial Capability Research Fund. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. <http://www.poverty-action.org/financialcapability>.
7. Beer, Gavin. "Shoulders and Limbs." Vertebrate Zoology; an Introduction to the Comparative Anatomy, Embryology, and Evolution of Chordate Animals. [New ed. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1951. 310. Print.
8. Boyington, Briana. "2015 Best Global Universities." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 27 Oct. 2014. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. <http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/articles/slideshow>.
9. L, Ceci. "Result Filters." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 4 Apr. 1975. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17760151>.

Hamdan, Amani. "Women and Education in Saudi Arabia: Challenges and Achievements." International Education Journal 6.1 (2005): 67. Shannon Research Press. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. <http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ854954.pdf>.