About Languages

1. How many languages are there in the world?

There are about 6,500 languages, most of which are threatened with extinction. Most languages are in Asia. One single country, Papua New Guinea has around 700. There are about 50 languages in Europe. There are four languages in the Basque Country: Basque, Spanish, French ... and Gascon.

2. What is the hardest language to learn in the world? And the easiest?

That is a very hard question to answer. Naturally, it all depends on a person's native (or acquired) language. For Spanish speakers, for example, Galician is very easy, probably the easiest language to learn, but that is not the case for English-speakers who find the verbal morphology of any Romance language to be exceedingly difficult. For an English-speaker, I would say that Afrikaans is probably the easiest language to learn.

The hardest language that I have ever had the opportunity to study, albeit superficially, was Navaho. It has nearly everything that makes a language hard for any speaker of a European language: tonal system not unlike Chinese, incredibly complex morphology and its world view is totally different.

The most difficult language to write in the world is Japanese, make no doubt about it. It uses Chinese characters (sometimes with two pronunciations, a Chinese one and Japanese one), a syllabary (a kind of alphabet) for grammatical functions that are hard to express with Chinese characters, and another syllabary to render foreign words. Sometimes, even our alphabet is used in certain circumstances.

3. What is the best way to learn a language?

The best way is start is by learning the basic structures and the 100-300 most common words. This means that you really have to know how to use the verb in most tenses, that you know how to construct a complete noun phrase, know how to use the comparative and superlative, how to use key words, etc. You also have to listen to the language constantly in order to be able to understand it and even be able to speak it. In any case, it is more important to know the very basic words and structures very, very well than to know a few words without mastering the basic grammar.
You then have to learn vocabulary systemically by memorizing words on the basis of "word families", i.e. fruits, vegetables, family terms, body parts, etc. You also have to learn the basic idioms and set phrases in various contexts, e.g. how to ask about somebody's age, family, etc.
One last thing: you never stop learning a language, even your own native language. There are always new words cropping up, hitherto unknown sayings are discovered, etc.

4. After English, what languages should I learn?

That, of course, is a very personal question. It depends on what you know already and what you are likely to use. In Europe (excluding Russia), after English, German is the most spoken language and economically very powerful. This is followed by French. Of course, if someone does business in Lisbon, learning Portuguese is a must. The same goes for Italian in Italy, Polish in Poland, etc. If someone lives in the Basque Country and does not know Basque, I would highly recommend that he or she should learn at least some Basque so as not to feel left out. Also, believe it or not, speaking the other language creates a bond between speakers.
Chinese is set to become the world's second language and its huge potential market and skyrocketing economy will making learning Chinese irresistible since although the Chinese might sell their goods to the world in English, they do prefer to buy goods from the world in Chinese. I am encouraging my own children to learn Chinese.

5. Do you teach other languages at Morris Academy besides English?

In the past, we have taught French and German but really, the demand is for English and we are struggling to be able to keep up with that demand.

6. In the future, what languages will be the most important?

If the importance of a language can be measured by sheer numbers and raw economic and political power, there are only two global candidates (all others will be regional at best): English and Chinese. English will be world lingua franca for a long time to come. It is already the lingua franca among countries of the European Union, North America, Oceania, most of Asia, and a large part of Africa. Even many people of the middle class -- and certainly most of the upper class -- in Latin America are fluent in English. Nevertheless, the sheer number of people in China (25% of the world's entire population) and the rapid economic growth of China will make its economy the most powerful one by far and Chinese will eventually become the main language of East and Southeast Asia.

7. Can a person really be bilingual or multilingual?

In theory, it is definitely possible but we must define our terms. If one means speaking two or more languages, than it is not only possible, it is reality in millions and millions of people around the world. However, if we define bilingualism (or multilingualism) as the ability to speak one or two languages equally then I am more skeptical.

8. Why are English-speakers (Americans, English, Australians) generally so bad at learning languages?

Generally speaking, it is my experience that people who come from a culture with an expansive, imperialist tradition are at a disadvantage when learning another language, especially in comparison with people from smaller cultures. For example, according to a recent survey, the people in Europe who are the least skilful linguists are those who live in Great Britain and Ireland (surprising in view of that fact that Irish Gaelic is at least taught there). The Spanish, Italians, and French are not so very far behind. They have a legacy of empire, vast territories have been under their control where many, or most, of the inhabitants learnt their languages. In short, they are used to people learning their languages and not used to having to learn other people's languages.Since most people do not like to work, and learning languages does require effort, it is logical that people from the larger cultures fail to learn languages in general unless they absolutely have to.

Indeed, according to said survey, the most skilful Europeans in languages are not only the Dutch and Scandinavians but those living in the smaller nations of Eastern Europe (e.g. Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, etc.). Perhaps because people from these smaller nations are aware that it is unlikely that foreigners will learn Slovenian, Albanian, Finnish, or even Dutch and so are motivated to learn larger languages to speak to the world.
In view of what is going on, it is hardly surprising that Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders, for example, fare badly when it comes to speaking foreign languages. Even with massive immigration to their countries or a growing dependence on exports, relatively very few Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders have a true working knowledge of a foreign language. Most of those who do were born in families with parents born abroad. Essentially, the attitude is: why learn another language if everyone else knows or is learning English? An arrogant attitude it might be, but hardly different from what the French, British, Spanish, Russian, or Chinese attitude towards learning languages spoken within their borders, for example.

9. Exactly, if someone says "I speak X language", what does that exactly mean? Do you have to have a diploma to say that you really know a language?

It has been said that someone can actually speak a language if they can argue about religion or politics in that language. That is a fairly good gauge because if someone says that you are going to hell or the Holocaust never happened, you are concentrating more on bringing your point across rather than the third person singular indicative or whether a noun is feminine, masculine, abstract or in the nominative, accusative, illative, or ergative case.

A diploma is useful only if you really have to prove that you speak a foreign language though, in some cases, it serves as a stimulus to gain a greater understanding of a certain language. In my case, having the D maila (equivalent to the EGA diploma) for the Basque language has been particularly useful in my career, especially when getting jobs at local schools and the university. I have diplomas that I have proficiency in Spanish and English but no diploma that proves that I know Portuguese even though I speak Portuguese much better than Spanish or, arguably, Basque.