Patricia Ryan: Don't insist on English!

http://www.ted.com At TEDxDubai, longtime English teacher Patricia Ryan asks a provocative question: Is the world's focus on English preventing the spread of great ideas in other languages? (For instance: what if Einstein had to pass the TOEFL?) It's a passionate defense of translating and sharing ideas.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Patricia
• Ryan
• TEDTalks
• TED
• Talks
• TEDxDubai
• Dubai
• English
• language
• TOEFL

[icebear]

Her comment that science should regress back to a state of research across multiple languages which is only later translated into all languages is extremely regressive. Who chooses what is worthy of the costly translation process? How quickly do works become translated? How do scientists collaborate across great spaces if a translator is needed? Who employs the army of translators necessary?

English as a common language solves all of these issues, and not necessarily at the loss of another.

[mythosrattus]

@mythosrattus If a language doesn't have a word for 'stuck' for example, as in "I can't figure this out, I'm stuck" chances are the very concept of being stuck doesn't exist in that culture and the people in that culture are more likely to be successful despite problems. Culture does not build language, language builds culture (Sapir-Whorf) and culture builds people. If everyone is the same we get no where. We need as much diversity as we can get or we'll just be going 'round in circles.

[FISHURMOMBALL]

Hey Youtube, why SHOULD we insist on english? This is for an assignment i have to do.

[einyelisreal]

@benjwgarner you're sick if you think that. There's no way globalization can be good for culture diversity. Let's preserve that. Let's speak english, french, arabic, spanish or russian Let's speak as much as we like. Though English is the global language today, I'm no way going to lose my two own mother tongues. Being bilingual since I was born was a gift to me, so I'm not gonna let world's biggest treasure die just because of English. By the way, I'm an english teacher.

[ImUnaware]

@the said tormented

How did you do in school (the foreign language dept)? I'm sure you don't speak Mudburra, yet that was not a hindrance in your professional development. For non-native speakers, a TOEFL test may open/close the door between mediocrity and excellence. Does that not chase subjectivity away? It's nice and cozy to talk about efforts others have to make. You've got English as your mother tongue, and you've got electricity. Try an immersion into another culture and you'll understand.

[ImUnaware]

@ those tormented by entitlement

Have you ever considered learning Russian? What if you were compelled to do so, in order to get some place other than your country? What if you had to have a high degree of knowledge of the Greek, Latin or Amharic languages to enter a university abroad? What if you had to know Hebrew to have access to some bibliography or resource? Would you think the same? Because, if we are to propose global solutions, we have to think global. We are all different, thank God!

[tkmikkelsen1]

She forgot to include the Philippines as an English speaking nation. If you claim India as English speaking, then you also have to include the Philippines. :-)

[adhair]

Historical languages should be preserved, by all means, but everyone is benefited by being able to communicate with one another. If the Dubai garden plant doesn't have a name in English, we simply do what we've done for centuries: adopt the native one. Meanwhile, mistranslations of scientific research have resulted in huge errors which persist for decades or more. (I'm looking at you, "tongue map.")

[mythosrattus]

@icebear Yes but if you know anything about linguistic anthropology you know that there are concepts on other languages that don't exist in English and vice versa, not merely words but entire concepts. A lot of schools 'teach' English by forbidding the students from ever speaking their native language even at home, which is why so many languages, so many unique ways of seeing the world, are dying at an alarming rate. Teaching English is one thing, killing other languages to do it is horrifying.

[x3ICEx]

My English test was 40$

[icebear]

@Tekkenman101 I've been told by the few folks I know in academic science that until WWII a large amount of journals were in German. At that time [in biology] it supposedly was not unusual for American grad students to have to trudge through German articles. Obviously that changed after WWII.

This is just to illustrate that it doesn't have to be English specifically, but that it seems a dominant language tends to take hold, not out of intrinsic superiority but for practical reasons.