10-year-old teaches himself 10 languages

by Abha Malpani on


Little British-Indian kid Arpan Sharma, taught himself how to speak French, Italian (when he was 7), German (at 8), Spanish (at 9), Swahili, Mandarin, Polish, Thai and Lugandan (Uganda); and of course he speaks Hindi and English.

His dream is to travel the world as a doctor, and he wants to be able to speak the native tongue of the country he works in. He is 10.

My primary education was in England too. My mother would force me to study Hindi every Sunday; I hated it. All I wanted to do was read and make snowmen. I speak English, Hindi and Spanish — but there is room for a lot of improvement in all three. Constantly changing countries of residence can teach you new languages but can also destroy your language basics.

Hats off to this child who sitting in one country seems to be fluent in 11 languages.

In Dubai, it is not uncommon to find Middle-Eastern nationalities who speak, read and write English, Arabic and French fluently; they are brought up with these languages. Also, with a large Indian/Pakistani population, many understand and can speak basic Hindi/Urdu.

I’m so envious of multi-lingual people. But if this 10-year-old kid can teach himself, I suppose I have no excuse if I want to be one of them.

Will Chinese really take over English and Spanish?

by Abha Malpani on

When I left my high-flying public relations job to travel, learn Spanish and write, more than a few people said: “what are you learning Spanish for? Learn Mandarin, it’s going to be the new most needed/wanted language, it will take you places!” This context is often debated and recently resurfaced in articles on Forbes, Freakonomics and World Hum.

I still don’t see the point.

Mandarin may be spoken by a larger number of people, but those people are mainly in China, Singapore and Hong Kong. When they travel or immigrate abroad, they need to learn the language of the place they’re at — people aren’t going to try to learn Mandarin to communicate with them.

Approximately 400 million people speak Spanish, across the US, all of Latin America and a majority of Western Europe. So if I speak English and Spanish, I can communicate practically anywhere except perhaps Japan and the 3-4 Mandarin speaking countries. Even with skyrocketing rate of economic growth in China, and the increase of travel of Mandarin speaking people worldwide, I really don’t see the whole, expansive world changing their main language of communication from English to Mandarin, do you?

Language and Landscape: Retaining Heritage Through Words

by Jamie Rhein on

When I heard and read about the number of indigenous languages dying off, I thought of the Appalachian Mountains where my mother grew up and where several of my relatives are buried in a small wooded family cemetery in Southeastern Kentucky. It’s not just other languages that are becoming obsolete, certain aspects of the English language are also changing. In the region where part of my heritage stems, as older generations die, phrases, expressions and a certain sentence structures are also disappearing. While people travel to Appalachia to take in the music, crafts and beauty of the scenery (providing coal mining leaves something behind), many people who once lived here have hit the highways long ago for points beyond and an income. Those that have stayed behind can flip on the TV and join the rest of the U.S. in the endless stream of coast to coast media blitz that, I think, is partly responsible for the growth of sameness.

There is an effort to retain the culture and language patterns here. People determined to retain and promote this sense of place through language are an integral part of the literary, music and art scene. I’ve been to the Appalachian Writers Workshop twice now, and Appalachian Family Folk Week once, both held at in Hindman, a town that has dwindled from the bustling county seat I remember from my childhood, to one where you can almost envision the tumbleweeds blowing through town in the late afternoon if this was in the west. The drugstore lunch counter is the one place to get a meal and that closes about 2 PM.

The Hindman Settlement School, established more than a century ago has operated both workshops for years. These endeavors have continued to nurture established writers like Lee Smith and George Ella Lyon while providing a venue for those who have moved from workshop participant status to presenter and successful published novelists in their own right. Silas House, and Gretchen Moran Laskas come to mind. All of them are travelers of the human spirit in this part of the world. This is where they call on words to sustain them and us in this place they call home.

For a wonderful read about one person’s experience with English use in this area, check out this essay, “Where the Creek Turkey Tracks: Wild Land and Language.” It is in the Winter 2007 edition of Appalachian Heritage.

The photo is of Uncle Sol’s cabin on the Settlement School grounds. Fred1st snapped this shot of the house where one of my great greats lived. Uncle Sol Everidge is one of my kin and credited with getting Katherine Pettit and May Stone to come to Hindman eons ago to establish the school and bring education to the mountain’s children.

Indigenous Languages are Dying in Australia

by Martha Edwards on

Globalization is an interesting phenomenon — on one hand, it makes the world accessible to everyone. On the other? Entire cultures being wiped out by Coca-cola, McDonald’s, Hollywood and everything else from the western world. That’s what’s happening in Australia, for instance. The Languages of the aborigines are vanishing like wildfire, giving way to ‘G’Day Mate’ and other cliche Aussie sayings.

Here’s an alarming statistic: Of the 6992 distinct languages worldwide, one is vanishing every two weeks. And they’re not just dying in Australia — South and North America are seeing their aboriginal languages dying quickly as well, and many are on the verge of distinction as only a handful of people in the world speak them. English is taking over as the universal language and while that’s not a bad thing for those of us who speak it, it’s sad to see age-old native tongues become lost forever.

How To Tell If You’re Smart Enough To Become An Aussie

by Brett Atkinson on

Recently I posted a story about a traveller from Australia that was accused of swearing on a SkyWest flight to Pittsburgh. Her supposed crime was to utter the true blue Aussie phrase “Fair Dinkum” in response to being told the serious news that the plane’s supply of pretzels had expired. Of course it’s not swearing, but just a bit of Downunder idiom meaning “Seriously?” or “For real?”

In an effort to make sure new immigrants to the land of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and Fosters lager can hit the ground running linguistically and culturally, the Australian government has announced plans for a new citizenship test that will probe potential immigrants’ knowledge of Australian culture and history. Maybe the Aussies could organise an exchange programme with the culturally-challenged inflight team fromSkyWest.

There’s no word yet if the Bush administration is going to ask newcomers to the Land of the Free if they can locate “The Iraq” on a map.

News via the BBC.