Klara’s Universe

Language is not only characteristic to human beings, it equally relies on human characteristics and values of tolerance, understanding and reaching out. The existence of languages implies the tolerance of listening, because “All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer”. (Robert Louis Stevenson) Moreover, learning other languages enables you to better and objectively analyse your own. As the great Goethe warned, “Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own”. A Swedish proverb says that “The trouble with foreign languages is, you have to think before your speak” and in fact, each language enriches its master with a different perspective of the world and triggers different cognitive-analytical processes.

Language is a living organism. Language continuously changes in both content and shape, in both time and space, because, to borrow the words of Victor Hugo, “A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it”. New generations entail new ideas and the discovery of a new language entails new ways of formulating ideas. This sharing of goods and exchange of ideas has historically contributed to spreading awareness of and lead to the concept of a common identity.

Globalization was born out of the same impulse to communicate, to reach out and explore. It therefore equally implies the necessity of a common ground for communication and relies on the pre-requisite existence of a lingua franca. As proved by Ferdinand de Saussure‘s linguistic research, a language becomes lingua franca based on the gradual tolerance of it by the community and not on a unanimously endorsed agreement. When becoming lingua franca, a language also inherits the multiple responsibilities of a common media. Its strength relies, as formulated by Goethe centuries ago, not in rejecting what is foreign but in assimilating it: “The force of a language does not consist of rejecting what is foreign but of swallowing it”.

A lingua franca has therefore the responsibility to show tolerance and engage in efforts of protecting other languages and cultures. It should equally help avoid misunderstandings and provide a rational common base for consensus, because more often than not, “Language is the source of misunderstandings”. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) One of the pre-requisites for a language to be used on a global scale, as previously stated, is easing the flow of human resources and ideas. Ensuring the continuity of this flow is also a vital task for a widespread language. It has been repeatedly underlined that knowledge of languages not only guarantees a comfortable travelling experience, but also acts as a self-defining mechanism. In Anton Chekhov’s words, “Without a knowledge of languages you feel as if you don’t have a passport”.

After Latin and French in Europe or Chinese and Persian in Asia, it is the turn of English to play the key role of lingua franca in our highly globalised and technological world. As with its illustrious predecessors, English’s status as a lingua franca today is a real fact and subjecting it to debates based on the moral dichotomy of good and bad is already an irrelevant endeavour. However, the English language itself has certain features that recommend it as a successful lingua franca. Leaving aside the debatable claim to its simplified grammatical and syntactical structure, it is undisputable that English is constituted of a wide variety of languages: the basic grammar and structure are those of Germanic languages (Anglo-Saxon) and many basic vocabulary elements come from the Celtic languages (Briton, Gaelic, etc), whereas elaborate vocabulary and concepts are inherited from the Romance languages (mainly French) and Latin. In addition, contemporary English has already merged with other languages to create new varieties: Afro-American English, Singlish, Hinglish, Franglais etc. and represents the base for many creole languages or pidgins: Nigerian Pidgin, Jamaican Patois, etc. It is also considered to be the most globally taught second language and its worldwide influence reflects in the high level of English borrowings in many other languages across the world. Moreover, simplified versions like Basic English and Special English have already emerged, a process not alien to the vernacularization of Latin throughout the Roman Empire.

What the world needs now is a new concept of globalization. It is time to shun away old notions of globalization as an offspring of colonization, rooted in exploitation and imposition of culture and language. Globalization today must rely on mutualism and promote sustainability and tolerance among the highly diversified cultures of the world. In order to achieve that it is essential to shift the focus from a monocultural to a multicultural approach to globalisation, where a lingua franca such as English will facilitate the spread of ideas and the mediation of political and economical issues but this time, between countries and cultures communicating on an equal footing/ from equal positions.

Globalization and Languages is the title of this year’s joint conference of United Nations University and UNESCO, to take place at the UNU Headquarters in Tokyo this week on August 27-28. I will be giving a hand on both days and will certainly attend it. More information can be found at:

Globalization and Languages Official Website

Girls’ education has rightly gained the spotlight in recent years as an important strategy to achieve not just one, but many of the international targets set at the Millennium Summit in 2000. It has been widely documented that getting girls into schools is essential not only to put the goal for universal primary education on track and empower women, but has a central role in the struggle to achieve other MDGs, if not all. South Asia is the region where the boys/girls student ratio in access to primary schooling has seen the most dramatic change and India is outperforming some of its neighbours in South Asia in reducing poverty and improving child and maternal health. Based on the results of many well-documented studies, it has become clear that women’s education has a strong positive impact on several other social development areas in India and this paper aims to set a comprehensive and global perspective on the role of girls’ education and achieving the MDGs.

It is widely recognised that educated women can not only take better care of their own health and that of their offspring, they can also improve their work and income, participate in sustainable development and gain a more prominent role in the partnership for development. These are in fact the major areas the MDGs are mostly concerned with. But while many isolated studies linking girls’ education and reproductive behaviour or mother’s education and children’s health, there are few studies that cast a comprehensive view of the impact of girls’ education on each of the MDGs.

In terms of gender parity in primary schools, South Asia has climbed up two places from holding the lowest position in the regions’ chart in 1991 with a ratio of about 0.75, to reaching a ratio of 0.93 by 2005 and out coming Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab States. Home to the world’s largest illiterate population (268.4 million), a 65 percentage of which are women, India still has a long way to catch up with on its way to achieving several MDGs. Although performing much better than some of its neighbours in South Asia in several of the MDGs, and largely due to its large population, India still houses a large number of people living with HIV/AIDS, has increased rates of child and maternal mortality and is among the top countries where deforestation and access to safe drinking water are a major issue. It is therefore especially meaningful to look at India as an example of a country where the recent boom in increased girls’ enrolment and completion rates has the potential of being the key to improving its performance in many other international targets.

In an increasingly globalised world, which has seen the recent surge of various regional associations across the globe, new issues of identity and integration arise as a necessity for states and individuals to define themselves on the global stage. On the other hand, the role of education in helping define identities is but too well known to educationalists and not only. It is therefore not surprising that recently there is, an “increasingly globally structure agenda for education”. (Dale and Petterson, 2002) As the main engines for developing human resources and promoting ideologies, universities are being the educational institutions most exposed to such phenomena as “globalisation” and “regionalisation”. The recent increase in programmes offered in English in universities across the globe is one such trend clearly connected to increased human mobility and regional integration.

It is therefore highly relevant to look into the provision of higher education in English and try to establish a correlation between the existence of such educational arrangements and the students’ perspective on issues like regional integration and identity. English is recognised by many as the lingua franca of the contemporary world. However there are many who challenge its legitimacy and are rather reluctant to consider it as such. The students’ opinion on the problem of establishing a common language is also an interesting topic for analysis in this regard.

In international relations integration can be observed at various levels, from national integration to globalisation. Asian integration is an example of regional integration, similar to other worldwide initiatives, the most famous and successful of which is European integration. The phenomenon is far from being new. Integration has existed historically as a constant component of human society and historically has reached its highest potential in the context of multinational empires and colonisation. Asia has an ancient tradition of empires and countries such as China and India are until today highly heterogeneous states where different ethnicities, languages and religions coexist. Most Asian countries experienced colonisation at some point in history and their links to different European countries, their culture and language can still be observed throughout Asia today.

Arguably the most culturally and religiously diverse continent, Asia faces its greatest difficulties in terms of cultural integration. On the global stage, steps have been taking towards including higher education among trade agreements such as GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services). As previously seen, some of the regional associations have also taken certain steps towards approaching the area of higher education, but they are yet to concretely materialise into generally accepted norms.