Speaking in other tongues In an English-centric culture, some Americans are taking a cue from immigrants and becoming linguistically

advantaged. "IN A GLOBAL MARKETPLACE, SECOND (AND THIRD!) LANGUAGES BECOME A VERY IMPORTANT ASSET. THEY WILL PUT YOU AHEAD OF THE PACK." Jennifer Gurahian says that Armenian was really her first language."My grandmother and parents spoke to me in Armenian when I was a baby, but spoke to each other in English," she says. "Once I started talking, I thought of Armenian as baby language and spoke only English." The second-generation American came back to the language of her ancestors with a vengeance after college, however, when she spent a year studying in her family's homeland. Now in her late 30s and with a second long-term stint in Armenia under her belt, she says that her fluency in Armenian, as well as a good grasp on Russian, has helped her be more fluent and articulate in English. America is a linguistic paradox. Even as it boasts a richly diverse population speaking a host of languages, it encourages immigrants to forsake their mother tongues and doesn't encourage native English speakers to acquire foreign-language skills. Historically, immigrants hailing from diverse nations have found it most useful to learn English to communicate with each other, not to mention the mainstream society. English has also emerged as the global business language, further decreasing what little pressure there is on Americans to learn other languages. Acquiring foreign-language skills is neither required nor routine in the U.S. educational system, as it is in many other countries. In the face of all this inertia, some Americans are beating the odds to learn other languages. Ironically, the territory now known as the United States has always been multilingual. Its native residents spoke multitudes of languages and still do. The 1990 census tabulated more than 330,000 people speaking more than 130 native North American languages at home, as well as almost 32 million speakers of hundreds of languages from other continents. Americans both embrace and reject lingual diversity. Recent immigrants from Latin and Asian cultures seem to be hanging on to their mother tongues longer than previous generations. At the same time, some English-speaking Americans seek to discourage the use of non-English languages in all situations. The majority of foreign-born U.S. residents naturally prefer to use their first language among family and friends. But most speak English elsewhere, with varying degrees of fluency. Fifty-six percent of the population aged 5 and older who speak a language other than English at home reported in the 1990 census that they also speak English "very well." An additional 23 percent speak it "well." We know a lot about the language skills of Americans for whom English isn't a mother tongue. But the U.S. census doesn't even ask those who speak English at home whether they speak any other languages.

Many American children do not have the opportunity to begin learning a foreign language until middle school or high school, even though research shows that it's easiest to become fluent in another language when exposed to it at a much earlier age. As of 1991, none of the 50 states required a single year of foreign language for high school graduates. Despite the lack of state requirements, a growing proportion of high school students are taking foreignlanguage courses. In 1992, 73 percent of college-bound seniors took at least two years of language in high school, up from 55 percent in 1982. Fifteen percent took four years of language, up from 10 percent in 1982. Teens not aspiring to a bachelor's degree were also more interested in language in the early 1990s; 33 percent took at least two years' worth in high school, up from 17 percent in 1982. Many of those who become proficient in French or Spanish fail to keep it up once they're out of school, however. Unlike riding a bicycle, foreign-language ability takes an enormous amount of ongoing effort and can largely disappear without regular practice. A small group of Americans seriously pursue language studies because they plan to make a living at it--as foreign-language teachers, for example. The field is small, but viable. In 1993-94, elementary and secondary schools in the U.S. employed about 80,000 foreign-language teachers, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Jobs are constantly opening up, too. Of the schools offering language instruction in 1993-94, 34 percent had vacancies in the area. And of those, 24 percent were finding it difficult to fill the positions. Teacher salaries are not always appealing, though. Some linguistically skilled people may go for bigger bucks as translators or interpreters. In fact, anecdotal evidence suggests that these lines of work are becoming more prominent, according to Michael McElroy, a supervisory economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "We're getting a lot more write-in responses on staffing surveys that specify these kinds of language-related jobs,'he says. He adds that proposed revisions to the Standard Occupational Classification system to be published in the Federal Register next month might address this concern. As it stands, such workers are lumped into a general category that includes artists and performers, so it's unclear how many there are and how fast their numbers are growing. For the vast majority of linguistically skilled Americans, however, language is just a piece of their job, albeit an increasingly useful one. In a commencement address to the Walker College of Business at Appalachian State University last spring, CEO William Holland of United Dominion Industries recommended three key areas for continued growth. The first was foreign language."If you don't have these skills right now, then resolve to get them," said Holland. "In a global marketplace, second (and third!) languages become a very important asset. They will put you ahead of the pack." Multinational companies aren't the only ones who make use of linguistically talented employees. Bankers, retailers, and other businesspeople who live in areas with large numbers of Spanish-speaking immigrants find it useful to be able to communicate with customers. Journalists, researchers, and

consultants have an edge over the competition when they can turn to sources who don't speak English and read printed material in other languages. Some Americans learn foreign languages for personal reasons. This group includes international travelers, those who study abroad, people who want to learn the language of their ancestors, and those who live in multilingual neighborhoods. Business opportunities abound to belatedly teach adults to get along in a multilingual world. People who want traditional classroom tutoring often turn to their local community college or other adult education institution. New York University (NYU) offers three types of language education. It teaches more than 25 languages on a noncredit basis. "In a typical class, I'll have a few businesspeople and students preparing for international assignments and studies" says John E. Stowe, who has taught Mandarin at NYU for ten years."I also get Cantonese speakers who want to learn the Mandarin dialect and people whose spouses are native speakers." Some people prefer to learn languages on their own, and technology is helping. In 1878, Berlitz began publishing phrase books for travelers. It still does, but the Princeton, New Jersey-based Berlitz International, Inc. and other language firms have entered the high-tech era with a vengeance. Retail sales of foreign-language CD-ROMs in the U.S. were an estimated $24 million in 1995, according to PC Data of Reston, Virginia, double the figure for 1994. French, Spanish, and German have been standard course fare for generations of American students. But as the world gets smaller, demand for more "exotic" languages is on the rise."Most of our customers are individuals who want to learn a language at the basic conversational level because they are planning to go somewhere for an extended period of time," says Asher Hockett, whose Ithaca, New York-based Spoken Language Services, Inc. offers self-instructional audio tapes and books for more than 50 languages. "We've seen a growing demand for Eastern European languages like Rumanian and Albanian, because lots of people are going to adopt children and to seek opportunity in the newly opened markets there," says Hockett. "Urdu and other Asian languages are also becoming more popular." This isn't surprising given the demographic reality of world populations. Sometimes the world of language is well represented within a single family. Barry Strauss is a history professor at Cornell University who is, like most classical scholars, multilingual. He is fluent in German and French, comfortable in Italian, Spanish, and modern Greek, and has a working knowledge of Hebrew and Yiddish. He's also picked up bits of Russian, Mandarin, and Korean along the way. His wife Marcia is a trained archaelogist of Canadian background fluent in French, with reading knowledge of German and Italian, and a passable understanding of modern Greek. The Strausses fully intend to pass on their multilingual values to their two adopted Korean children. Sixyear-old Sylvie is already learning Spanish in an after-school program and Hebrew in religious

instruction. Jennifer Gurahian and her Armenian husband also have no doubt that their infant son will speak more than one language." I think it's shocking how children in this country aren't taught languages from a very early age the way they are in the rest of the world,'says Jennifer. "l know that being multilingual plays a huge role in how I experience the world." ILLUSTRATION: By Diane Crispell
Lexile: 1190L Publication: American Demographics(Jan97) Author: Crispell, Diane