O
ne of things I have always loved about Gainesville and UF is the fact that I always hear snippets of different languages as I walk around campus.
Coming from a smaller town, I remember being surprised when I overheard an animated conversation being spoken in Mandarin beside me on Turlington Plaza on the second day of my freshman year.
Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Spanish and many other languages are all spoken on UF’s campus. This diversity of language adds a wonderful multicultural facet to life at UF.
The language someone speaks is far more than just a way to communicate. It is bound to a way of life, a culture, and it is often part of a rich and vibrant history.
Many people argue that new immigrants in America should discard their native languages and only speak English instead.
They believe English is the only language that truly matters today in our increasingly interconnected world and global economy.
This narrow, English-only mindset is arrogant and ridiculous.
Although it is extremely useful to speak fluent English in the U.S. for economic and social purposes, English is by no means the only language that matters. Americans would do well to remember and appreciate that.
When people learn a new language, they learn a new way to connect with others, and they get a small taste of another culture.
Learning a new language helps us become members of global society, citizens of the world.
A recent study from Cambridge reveals that in the next two decades, more than 25 percent of the world’s languages will face extinction.
If this frightening statistic is accurate, the human race will lose more than mere sequences of words and sounds; it will lose culture. Rich histories of human interaction will be swept away, and some of the world’s vibrant and diverse ways of life will be lost.
There is no doubt that globalization, fueled by an English-dominated economic system, has expanded humanity’s horizons.
By facilitating a cross-continental exchange of resources and understanding, globalization has helped bring humans closer together than ever before.
However, we must take care not to lose important cultural treasures to a whitewash of homogenous mass communication.
I encourage everyone who attends a college or university to seize the opportunity to learn a new language as part of his or her educational career.
Learning a new language is a way to expand your horizons and preserve methods of communication that might otherwise be lost and forgotten. Broadening your linguistic capabilities will also jumpstart your own experience in the big, exciting world that exists outside of the U.S.
UF has a high-quality and diverse language department. With more than 22 languages taught and researched on campus, there are opportunities to learn anything from Turkish to Swahili.
Learning a new language will ultimately help you understand more about the world around you and all it has to offer. It acts as a gesture of respect and humility toward other cultures, something that America has lacked at times throughout its history.
Learning another language is also a step toward admitting there is more to the world than what exists inside your own comfort zone or social bubble.
If English is the only language you know, it’s time to break out of that bubble.
As wonderful and beautiful as the English language is, it is simply not the only one worth learning.
Sally Greider is a UF English and public relations sophomore. Her columns usually appear on Tuesdays.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 9/12/2014 under the headline "Time to tear down the language barrier"]
