David Warlick has raised some good questions at his blog about learning languages and culture, and the value of learning multiple languages. I think that the newer communication and translation technologies are rapidly reshaping the traditional approaches to these questions, but not eradicating the need to know multiple languages--nor are they going to ever completely reach the status of "language killers," as some people fear.

Speaking entirely from the perspective of globalization, millennial learners, and a new information landscape, the question that begs asking in my mind is, “What good is a second language?” What I mean to say is, don’t we really need fifth or sixth languages? If it is our goal to be able to interact in a global community in the community’s tongue, then one more language (among the hundreds or thousands of human languages) really isn’t that much.

In Harrisburg Thinking about Languages

Now as for languages, we got to talking about how much we can learn about culture from learning about their language. The question was posed, does the culture make the language or does language make the culture? I don’t know, but it made me wonder about evolving languages, tipping points, and a rapidly changing world.

We, as individuals, can publish to a global readership, and be responded to. This word, blog, has become a part of our vocabulary, part of our dictionaries. That’s a tipping point. What does it mean to a culture that can practice such democratic activities?