First, I would like to remind President Obama, and other members of the government, of what exactly is stated in our First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.

The first Amendment : Religion and Expression

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This means, and has always meant, that I can say and write and express whatever I want. It is my right as an American. If I want to call the president every four letter expletive in existence or perhaps say that I think he is a slimy, no good, corrupt, selfish son of a gun (there might be children reading this), I can. It is my right.

Therefore, it is also the right of Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, to also say or write or express whatever he wants. And of all countries that might be prosecuting him, the United States should not be one of them.

Has my government forgotten the foundation of our country? Or are they scared that just maybe the American people will discover the corruption that is going on behind our backs? Is prosecution for “espionage” admittance that the information is true?

Whatever the answers are to these questions, it should still holds true that Wikileaks and any other media should be allowed to express themselves in whatever way they like. If the information is not correct, the government should not be worried and certainly should not be wasting tax dollars in the justice system to prosecute.

If the U.S. chooses to attack the first amendment, I vote that we also attack the second amendment, which is the right to have a militia and to bear arms. Maybe if we didn’t have so many people running around with guns uselessly killing people, Assange would not have so many things to write about, now would he?

One interesting story that I came across is that of Goa, which is located in South West India. Goa is the country’s smallest state in area yet the richest. The Portuguese influence is still strong there. Vasco da Gama is its largest city and Margao (Margão) still portrays the cultural influence of the Portuguese.

The Portuguese colonized Goa in the early 16^th century and remained its ruling power until it was annexed by India in 1961.

In that year, the official language was changed from Portuguese to English. But the major challenge that Goa faces today, 50 years after its liberation, is that all of its major laws are still written in Portuguese and have not been translated to English. The chairman of the Goa Law Commission, Ramakant Khalap, said that “the lack of infrastructure and expertise has kept on hold state’s plans to translate these century-old laws into English” according to an article in Daily News and Analysis.

Although Khalap has tried to translate these laws, it seems that he has had little luck finding an official translator that could translate laws whose authenticity would not be challenged in court. “The only option left to break this imbroglio is to adopt new framework of laws through our Legislative Assembly,” Khalap said. That seems a little risky if you ask me.

Dear Mr. Khalap – Need a great translation service provider? Let me introduce you to Ccaps…

Oxford University has recently added the 3,000 year old language to its list of available classes. There are 56 people learning the endangered language, more than the number of students studying Greek at the University. The lessons were designed by Dr. John Ma, University classicist teacher and leader of the group Project Arshama, whose goal is to encourage the study of the Persian Empire and the linguistic landscape of the ancient and modern near East. “The project is focused on one of the treasures of the vast Bodleian library, the 13 Arshama letters, written on leather in the Persian empire in the 5th century BC – priceless to scholars because so many documents on parchment or clay have not survived,” according to an article in The Guardian.

Jesus’s prayer in Aramaic

Professor Ma shares some interesting Aramaic phrases, which can be seen below:

• “Shelam biznah qodemay, ap tamah qodemayk shelam,” from a letter written 2,500 years ago, translates as “Peace here before me, and also peace over there before you,” but colloquially means “I am well, and hope you’re well too”.
• “Anah rahem leki” (from a man to a woman) and “Anah rahmah lak” (from a woman to a man), which means “I love you”.
• “Shelam we sherarat saggi hawseret leki” for “I have sent you peace and much strength”.

Interestingly, there is a congruent effort to make the Talmud, one of the central texts of Jewish law, more readily available as well. The Talmud is written in a combination of Hebrew and Aramaic and “is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history” according to Wikipedia.

Davka Corporation is releasing an iPhone App for Talmud students “that includes more than 500 of the most common Hebrew-Aramaic words, expressions, and abbreviations used in the Talmud, complete with English translation, in an easy-to-use, scrollable dictionary format,” according to an article at iPadmodo.

Renato explains that in relation to the connection between International trade and translation, language becomes an enabler and a multiplier. What he means by enabler is that language, or translating of a product into a multitude of languages, enables a company to make a product available to a much wider range of consumers. Language is a multiplier because it literally multiplies the company’s ability to continually multiply its international sales.  Once a company starts selling in various languages it is very rare that it would return to selling the product in just one language and thus naturally it continues multiplying.

The study goes on to prove this theory by demonstrating the correlation between multilingualism and economic competitiveness. Swedish, French and German small to medium enterprises all use multilingualism as an export strategy but use it to varying degrees.  For example, only 27% of Swedish SMEs have a multilingual export strategy and 20% of Swedish companies feel they have lost exportation contracts due to language barriers. While 63% of Danish SMEs have a multilingual export strategy in place and only 4% of Danish companies believe they lost contracts due to language barriers. France and Germany showed many similar correlations.

For more information, you can check out Renato’s blog at http://www.l10n411.com

Rewire our media, our Internet, our education, the ways in which we communicate, our global understanding and our policies that affect how we relate to immigrants and freedom of expression.

Wow, that is a lot! So why do we need to change all of these things and where do we start? It is shown that Americans live in a very egocentric segregated world. We are not only segregated from the rest of the world, but we are also segregated among our cultural groups within our own country. Studies show that only 12% of Americans pay attention to International news in comparison to 35% in the 1970’s. So as the world becomes more global and world communication becomes easier, US news coverage becomes less and less globalized. Why is that?

Well, according to a speech by Alisa Miller, CEO of Public Radio International, American networks and Internet sites find it cheaper and easier to cover the death of Anna Nicole Smith (about 2,640,000 results on Google) than important international stories like Korea agreeing to dismantle nuclear facilities (about 581,000 results on Google). These major networks only cover about 12% of international news and have reduced the number of foreign news bureaus by half. With the exceptions of three one-person ABC news bureaus in Nairobi, New Delhi and Mumbai, there are no local news bureaus in all of Africa, Asia and South America. And most of this 12% of international news covers the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ethan Zuckerman says there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is an organization called Yeeyan, which is a news site dedicated to translating English news into Chinese. They have over 150,000 volunteer translators that look for relevant news everyday in English and translate it into Chinese so that the news can be shared with billions of Chinese readers.

Yeeyan uses translation as a bridge between cultures, letting Chinese and English speakers see the world from each other’s perspective. Zuckerman argues, if Yeeyan can do this, why can’t we? One organization trying is called Global Voices, which provides links to news from all over the world. “Global Voices is a community of more than 300 bloggers and translators around the world who work together to bring you reports from blogs and citizen media everywhere, with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media.”

The bottom line is that Americans, and perhaps people all over the world, need to put more pressure on media networks to cover stories that are relevant from a world perspective. News networks need to feel a sense of responsibility that what they are covering will educate people, make them more conscious and give them a sense that they belong to a larger global community.

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that is made up of facts and information that are user contributed, corrected and updated, is reaching out to users everywhere to make an annual or monthly donation in order to keep its webpage advertisement free, open, and bias free.

According to the founder, Jimmy Wales, “If all of Wikipedia’s 400 million users would donate $1 each, we would have 20 times the amount of money we need. We’re a small organization, and I’ve worked hard over the years to keep us lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.”

If you like Wikipedia, and more importantly if you use Wikipedia, and like the idea of a completely open source encyclopedia, consider making a donation today. Unless you are the creative type; in that case, find out other ways you can contribute here.

I have already written several posts about the growing demand for translators, but we are also seeing an increase in demand for bilingual speakers in several areas. CNN published this list created by careerbuilder.com in 2009 and that is mostly related to demand in the United States, but many of these areas are in demand in various parts of the world.

Health care: With an increase in the number of foreign language speakers, there is a higher demand for bilingual staff to assist these patients. This area also happens to have a high demand for translators as well.

Hospitality: As traveling around the globe becomes easier and cheaper, there is an increased demand for staff that can understand and speak to a variety of guests to make them feel at home.

Education: In addition to ESL teachers, there is a high demand for bilingual teachers, counselors and principals that can help the students communicate with immigrant parents.

Law Enforcement: When solving crimes, questioning suspects, or shouting demands, it makes things a lot easier (and could even save lives) when if law can communicate effectively.

Customer Service: With an increase in the number of immigrant consumers, there is higher demand to service them in the best way possible. That starts with communicating properly.

Social Services: Like other service areas, social service is based on communication. Caseworkers, parents, and children all need to communicate well.

Finance: Business is increasingly global and therefore financial positions increasingly deal with foreign currency and the languages that come with them.

Communication: Well, this one is quite obvious, right? You get the picture…

Some of Yammer’s tools include Enterprise Microblogging, Direct Messaging, Files, Links, and Images upload, Groups, Communities, Profiles, Company Directory, Knowledge Base, third party applications and mobile connectivity.

In an effort to grow and compete with other enterprise networking sites like salesforce.com, Yammer has recently earned significant funding that it plans to use it to triple its marketing efforts and increase its global presence in the marketplace. Yammer is also working on increasing users by making its application available in more languages.

They have recently made the application available in Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. Yet they also plan to add additional languages each week with the help of a professional translation firm as well as its own Translations application.

The app makes use of crowdsourcing as part of the translation process by allowing volunteers to submit translations and vote on existing ones. Ninety-four languages are currently available for user translation:

We have all heard of and have probably used MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and Orkut. But have you heard of Yammer?

“Yammer has a huge global opportunity,” said David Sacks, the company’s founder and CEO. “We believe that every company will want its own enterprise social network, no matter its size or industry, and that includes companies in countries that don’t speak English. Translating Yammer massively increases our market opportunity.”

By comparison, Salesforce.com is currently available in 16 languages, while other competitors such as Huddle and Jive come in less than ten.

Wanna volunteer? Check this out: http://blog.yammer.com/blog/2010/11/yammer-in-translation.html

One advantage that the center offers are 90-minute personal classes given once per week. The women have one on one time to overcome their fear of speaking English. And the only cost is a $25 annual fee for the workbook. The classes last three years and afterwards the women can join a conversational group as long as they please.

More than 180 women received tutoring this year at the center on Chicago’s near east side. More than 100 remain on a registration waiting list, while another 90 are waiting for tutors to become available. About 80 percent of the women come from Mexico, and others hail from Russia, Pakistan, Peru, Haiti and elsewhere.

Run by the Dominican Sisters of Springfield, the literacy center is one of numerous organizations in the Chicago region supported by Chicago Tribune Holiday Giving, a campaign of Chicago Tribune Charities, a McCormick Foundation Fund. Here is the link in case you feel like making a donation:

https://donate.mccormickfoundation.org/NetCommunity/SSLPage.aspx?pid=205

Sure, in high school I had to take two years of a foreign language, but I went to a privileged high school. This is only because I was planning to attend a very good university; otherwise, it was not required. We also had fun things like wood arts and ceramics, which were considered no less important than the French or Spanish classes that we could choose from. I guarantee that many parts of the country do not have funds nor do they place importance on learning a foreign language. Besides, how useful are just two years of study?

As a whole, we tend to be a very linguistically egocentric society. And with the help of the British, we have succeeded in making most of the world speak our language if they want to do business or have relations with us. Think about it, does the president even speak a foreign language? If he does, I am sure I am not aware of it because nobody places language skills as an important factor when you are competing for leadership of the most powerful nation in the world. Weird, isn’t it?

Anyway, this gap in our linguistic awareness is becoming a thorn on our side as we start to suffer the consequences of our lack of foreign language proficiency. Let’s take a look at the Iraq war for example. How many soldiers had the slightest notion of how to speak the local language while they were raiding villages in the middle of the night? They are given basic language training just before a raid without probably ever having to know how to really communicate with the locals.

Anthony Grafton, professor of History at Princeton University, writing in the The Daily Princetonian, a university newspaper, addressed the problem in regards to the military, “Sadly, many Americans don’t see the point of studying foreign languages at all, since the world seems to have learned English,” Grafton said. “I wish everyone could speak, as I have, with a veteran of the Iraq war who has done house-to-house searches at night without the benefit of a competent interpreter.”

There are various reports that also illustrate the problems and disadvantages that exist due to a lack of language proficiency in the U.S. Military. I have the utmost respect for our military and I honor the young men and women that risk their lives to fight for their country, but is it really fair to send them to war without even understanding what the opponent is saying?

“For the United States to get to where it needs to be will require a national commitment to strengthening America’s foreign language proficiency,” said Leon Panetta, director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the CIA Foreign Language Summit in December 2010. “Mastery of a second language allows you to capture the nuances that are essential to true understanding,” Panetta told attendees. “This is not about learning something that is helpful or simply nice to have. It is crucial to CIA’s mission.”

John Carlino, executive director of the New York State Association of Foreign Language Teachers, says, “It’s important to point out that if everyone else speaks our language, but we don’t speak other languages or understand other cultures, we are at a huge disadvantage in the global market.”

“When you learn a foreign language you begin working parts of the brain you do not normally use. It increases intelligence, communications skills, higher-level thinking skills, critical analysis. Brain and language acquisition research has shown that the earlier one starts and the longer the duration of exposure to another language, the deeper, quicker and longer lasting the learning will be,” Carlino stressed.

Martha Abbott, director of education for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, agreed. “It’s very naïve to say ‘the world speaks English,’ therefore I don’t need a foreign language,” she said. “Who has the advantage in business when they know your language and you don’t know theirs?”

The U.S. ranked 26 on the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) test, which is conducted every few years by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In my opinion, this score is pretty pathetic for a world superpower. The top 10 ranked countries happen to require foreign language proficiency in their schools.

Go figure…