Since 2009, language education in the U.S.has consistently lost ground in the battle for relevance and funding. The shiftin national budget priorities has resulted in some language programs beingdiscontinued and others being scaled back. At the same time, the number ofcollege students enrolling in language courses has steadily declined. This lossin enrollments has been compounded by the problem of students studying thewrong languages. For example, in 2013 approximately 198,000 U.S. collegestudents were enrolled in French language courses, while only 64 students werestudying Bengali. The reality is that 193 million people around the world speakBengali, while fewer than 75 million speak French. Language education is alsofighting the commonly held belief that only those with a natural gift forlanguages can become proficient. Richard Brecht, who oversees the University ofMaryland's Center for Advanced Study of Language, says, "It isn't thatpeople don't think language education is important. It's that they don't thinkit's possible." Not everyone agrees that it's important. Educators argueamongst themselves about the value of learning a language, especially when mathand science programs are competing for the same limited funding. And those whodo value language education disagree about which languages should be studied.In the end, advocates for language education say this is not one problem, butmany. They add there is no simple solution. From "America's Lacking LanguageSkills" The Atlantic (DC) (05/10/15) Friedman,Amelia

Ontario Court of Appeal Justice PaulRouleau has ordered the federal Crown to cover the costs of a prolongedpreliminary hearing for a defendant in a cocaine trafficking trial because ofvarious language rights violations. Christian Munkonda was one of eight peoplecharged in 2010 with offenses related to allegations of cocaine trafficking.Six of the accused chose to be tried in English. Munkonda and anotherdefendant, who was eventually discharged, chose to have their preliminaryhearing in French. The Criminal Code requires that a judge must order aproceeding to be held in both of Canada's official languages under certainconditions, such as when there are two or more accused who speak either Englishor French. The code also stipulates the provision of a bilingual judge andprosecutor and that all court documents need to be in both official languages,including transcripts at the preliminary hearing. Rouleau determined theprosecution did not respect the appellant's language rights, and the treatmentit provided to the accused who exercised their right to have their preliminaryhearing held in English was superior to the treatment it afforded to the accusedwho chose French. Among the examples of ignored bilingual mandates the Court ofAppeal cited was the filing of more than 1,000 conversations in four differentlanguages into the court record, but only in English. "The originalversion of the texts of conversations in French was not included in thetranscripts," Rouleau notes. Moreover, two of the three federalprosecutors were unilingual, as was the court reporter transcribing thetestimony. "In conceptual terms, a bilingual trial or preliminary inquiry isa merger of a proceeding in French and a proceeding in English," Rouleauexplains. "To the extent possible and provided that it is reasonable, thelanguage rights of each of the accused must be respected." Jean Richer,who represents Munkonda, says the ruling is very clear about the requirement torespect the statutory language rights of defendants. "The court is sendinga message. Stop ignoring these sections. They are mandatory," says Richer,who adds that they are not "ideals" but provisions that must befollowed. From "Judge Orders Crown to Pay CostsOver Language Rights Violations" Canadian Lawyer (Canada) (05/06/15) Kari,Shannon

Poor subtitling of the new Avengers movie,Age of Ultron, has left many Chinese moviegoers disappointed. The most commoncomplaint is that the film's translation is far too literal, resulting incompletely changed meanings. Examples abound. Captain America's statement"I'm home " is translated as "I'm good." A line abouthaving to wait too long is subtitled "I am very old." In Iron Man'srally to fight to the death, his statement "We may not make it out of this" is translated as "Let's back off now." Social media has beenrelentless in tracking the blunders, with some commentators laughinglysuggesting that the subtitles were done by Google Translate. But this isserious business for most Chinese moviegoers. One blogger reported that thewoman in front of him almost cried before saying, "Let's go home, I can'tput up with it." From "'Avengers: Age of Ultron'Subtitles Leave Chinese Baffled" Hollywood Reporter (CA) (05/13/15) Coonan,Clifford

The Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement (NaO) became law on May 13, 2015. The agreement, which was signed in 1990, establishes new spelling and grammar rules with the goal of standardizing the Portuguese language. Implementation of the law began in 2009. Following several years of transition, the NaO changes were introduced into school systems in 2011. In 2012, all official public documents were required to follow the new rules. The NaO agreement applies to nine countries where Portuguese is the official language: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé, Principe, and Timor Leste. However, 80% of the 261,000-million Portuguese speakers reside in Brazil, and some cite this dominance as the reason the agreement heavily favors Brazilian Portuguese. Critics on both sides of the language divide view NaO as an attack on diversity. Language Professor Marcelo Leite says, "Difference is the cool thing " in cultural heritage. Proponents, on the other hand, see the differences in pronunciation and grammar as problems that can and should be fixed. They note that it's often difficult for Brazilian- and Portuguese-speakers to understand one another, and, they add, that doesn't benefit anyone.From "Portuguese Language Reform Law Goes Global" Euronews (France) (05/14/15) Lancashire, Adrian

New York Times reporter Sarah Maslin Nirtook an unusual approach to an investigation of the exploitation of nail salonworkers. Instead of working in English, Nir assembled a team of translators andinterpreters to investigate the story in Korean, Chinese, Spanish, andEnglish—the languages most commonly spoken by the salon workers. Over thecourse of a year, the interpreters on Nirs team interviewed 125 salon workers.Many more refused to talk. The use of interpreters, although costly, becamecrucial in establishing trust. The translators working on the project reviewedcourt cases and foreign language newspapers looking for reports of underpaymentand abusive working conditions. What Nir and her team discovered was made allthe more shocking by its ordinariness: there is a nail salon on every corner,in every mall, and never a thought that anything could be wrong. Yet, there is.Salon workers are paid as little as $1.50 per hour and often work 24-hourshifts. They frequently share small apartments with 10 to 12 co-workers. It isnot unusual for a worker to pay a $100 training fee in order to get the job,and then work without pay for months before the salon owner decides they arequalified enough to receive a salary. One unexpected finding of theinvestigation further emphasized the value of working a story in multiplelanguages. By comparing the interviews across all four languages, Nirdiscovered that ethnic discrimination plays a huge role in the nail salonindustry: Korean speakers earn 15% to 25% more and in general are treatedbetter than either Chinese or Spanish-peakers. This aspect of the story wouldnever have come to light if Nir had focused on only one language group to theexclusion of the other two. The decision to use translators and interpreters inthe investigation turned out to be invaluable. From "Why a New York Times Nail SalonExposé Is Published in Four Languages" Columbia Journalism Review (NY) (05/08/15)Bech Sillesen, Lene

Boonville, California, a few hours north ofSan Francisco, is a small town known for its craft beer and its uniquecontribution to communication – not the high tech communication that is thestuff of Silicon Valley, but rather a more basic sort of innovation. With apopulation of just over 1,000, Boonville is the home of Boontling, which, ifyou didn’t know, is the town’s own language, developed over the past century-and-a-half,mostly so that the denizens of Boonville could communicate with one anotherwithout being understood by outsiders. To be accurate, Boontling isn’t really a‘language’ properly speaking, not the way linguists define it at least. Onecould more accurately call it a regional vernacular, a jargon perhaps. It’s avariety of spoken English that has never been spoken by more than 1,000 peopleat a time and today its population of speakers is dwindling as their offspringadopt the ways, customs, and speech of the very outsiders that Boontling wasintended to keep outside. No interpreter service can keep Boontling alive. Thesheer force of standardization is pushing it into the past.