Some thoughts about foreign language education

“What do you call someone who speaks three languages? (Trilingual.) What do you call someone who speaks two languages? (Bilingual.) What do you call someone who speaks one language? (American.)”

– An old joke, with an alternative punch line saying “British”

If we were to rank the world’s languages by the total number of speakers (native and non-native), the English language would be the most spoken language in the world. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage to native speakers of English. On the one hand, it makes it easier for us to find people that speak our language when we travel abroad, and this confers many advantages upon us when we travel. On the other hand, it means that we are seldom forced to learn a foreign language, the way that our counterparts elsewhere often seem to do (hence the joke above). Knowing a foreign language confers many benefits, and not just of the economic variety. Our brains benefit from this kind of education, and it allows us to see the world differently than monolinguals do. The benefits of knowing a foreign language are often advertised by professors of languages, at least when their languages are foreign to the places where they live and teach. But which languages should we teach in our school system? In my view, we should endeavor to teach something like all of them, whether they are ancient or modern or anything in between.

A review of David Grubin's “The Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha” (PBS)

For practicing Buddhists, Siddhartha Gautama was just the first Buddha …

At the time I write this, I have watched eight other films by David Grubin – and I am a fan of all of them. These include Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, LBJ, and RFK (a lot of initials there). Every film on this particular list is a biography, and David Grubin is very good at making them. But as you may have noticed, all of these other biographies are about Western individuals; and few of his films cover more Eastern topics. As far as I know, this was his first foray into Asian history; but seems to have been a good one despite this lack of prior experience with the region. It is a good introduction to understanding Buddhism, because it examines the life of Siddhartha Gautama, the man whom Buddhists revere as the first “Buddha.” In the Buddhist religion, any good person can become a “Buddha”; so he is only held to be the first of them. Nonetheless, there’s a reason that most people think of Siddhartha Gautama when they hear a phrase like “the Buddha.” He was the founder of the religion, and one of the world's great religious leaders.

A review of PBS's “Edison: The Father of Invention” (American Experience)

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

– Thomas Alva Edison

The great “geek” questions: “Edison or Tesla?”

I have heard that one of the big “geek” questions is “Edison or Tesla?” I suppose that science geeks and engineering geeks are the ones most likely to ask this question, but business geeks like me (and history geeks like me) do as well, since they were both massive figures in the history of business. Edison founded a company called “Edison General Electric,” which later merged with the “Thomson-Houston Electric Company” to form “General Electric.” The latter company is still around today in its merged form. There are also a number of other companies that bear his name today, such as “Southern California Edison” – part of a larger company called “Edison International.” General Electric alone would be a major business legacy for any man, since it is one of the biggest companies in the country today. (In 2018, it was the 18th-largest firm in the United States by gross revenue.) But Edison was first and foremost a great inventor, and that is how he is best remembered today.

How I observe ethnic history months

There are some categories that I display on my blog's sidebar year-round. These include Jewish history, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, British history, Canadian history, the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, the Cold War, and others. But there are some other categories that I only display during one month of the year, particularly if a month has been designated as a special period for the history of a particular ethnic group. (For example, Black History Month is in February.)

This is partly to show solidarity with these ethnic groups. But it is also partly to increase interest in my posts about these subjects. I don't always begin exactly on the first day of the month, but I always try to do so. Here are the particulars of the rotation: