AHS TED Talk Blogging: Post 2: Patricia Ryan

In her short, yet persuasive TED talk, Patricia Ryan considers how and why English is dominating and the pros and cons of this globalization of language. Ryan presents many impressive statistics like the fact that a language dies every 14 days to support her point of view. She believes that having a global language is important in today's world, but English should not become a barrier to progress and education. The necessity of knowing fluent English prevents many potentially brilliant people who cannot pass language tests from entering universities. She says that ideas can be shared in any language through translation. In addition, she argues that language death is a tragedy. Many words cannot be translated into English or by translating into English they lost part of their meaning. Languages are very precious and unique and should be kept alive.

I agree with Ryan that each language is different, unique, and special in its own way -- some artful, some exact, some emotional. I think many multiple languages should be allowed to thrive and scientific work should be published in multiple languages and then translated into a global language. This allows those who cannot afford to learn English or cannot pass language tests to still share research. In schools, a primary language should remain but secondary language classes are very important as well for students to understand the world and other ways of thinking.