Det sprog jeg taler lige nu er ved at blive et universelt sprog for hele verden, hvad end vi kan lide det eller ej. Lad os se det i øjnene, Det er internettets sprog Finansverdenens sprog Sproget i kontrollen med luftfart i populærmusikken, i diplomati -- Engelsk er overalt.
The language I'm speaking right now is on its way to becoming the world's universal language, for better or for worse. Let's face it, it's the language of the internet, it's the language of finance, it's the language of air traffic control, of popular music, diplomacy -- English is everywhere.
Der er flere mennesker der taler Mandarin, men der er flere kinesere der lærer engelsk, en engelsktalende som læser kinesisk. Det seneste jeg har hørt, er at der er 25 universiteter i Kina - lige nu som kun underviser på engelsk. Engelsk dominerer.
Now, Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people, but more Chinese people are learning English than English speakers are learning Chinese. Last I heard, there are two dozen universities in China right now teaching all in English. English is taking over.
Derudover - er det blevet forudset, at ved århundredskiftet Vil næsten ingen af de sprog der findes nu omkring 6000 - blive talt længere. Der vil kun være nogle få 100 tilbage. Desuden er vi i en tid hvor øjeblikkelig oversættelse af direkte tale ikke kun er muligt, men bliver bedre år for år
And in addition to that, it's been predicted that at the end of the century almost all of the languages that exist now -- there are about 6,000 -- will no longer be spoken. There will only be some hundreds left. And on top of that, it's at the point where instant translation of live speech is not only possible, but it gets better every year.
Grunden til jeg fortæller jer alt dette er fordi jeg kan mærke vi er nået et punkt hvor folk begynder at stille dette spørgsmål: Hvorfor skal vi lære fremmedsprog - udover at lære engelsk, hvis det er fremmed for os? Hvorfor bruge tid på at lære nye sprog, når vi er nået et punkt hvor næsten alle i verden, vil være i stand til at bruge engelsk?
The reason I'm reciting those things to you is because I can tell that we're getting to the point where a question is going to start being asked, which is: Why should we learn foreign languages -- other than if English happens to be foreign to one? Why bother to learn another one when it's getting to the point where almost everybody in the world will be able to communicate in one?
Jeg synes der er mange grunde, men først vil jeg tage fat på den, som I højst sandsynligt har hørt før, for den er langt farligere end man måske tror Det er idéen om at sprog styrer dine tanker, at forskellige sprogs ordforråd og grammatik skaber unikke verdener vi kan leve i, kan man vel sige. Det er en vidunderligt tillokkende idé men det er også lidt fup.
I think there are a lot of reasons, but I first want to address the one that you're probably most likely to have heard of, because actually it's more dangerous than you might think. And that is the idea that a language channels your thoughts, that the vocabulary and the grammar of different languages gives everybody a different kind of acid trip, so to speak. That is a marvelously enticing idea, but it's kind of fraught.
Det er ikke fordi det er helt usandt. Altså, på fransk og spansk for eksempel er ordet for bord, af en eller anden grund, markeret for hunkøn. Så, "la table,", "la mesa," det skal man bare leve med. Det er blevet vist at hvis du taler et af de sprog, og nogen skulle spørge dig, hvordan du forestiller dig et bord lyder når det taler så vil det ske oftere, end hvad der kan tilskrives tilfældighed, at en der taler fransk eller spansk siger at bordet ville tale med en lys og feminin stemme. Så hvis du er fransk eller spansk, ser du et bord lidt som noget piget, men ikke hvis du er engelsk.
So it's not that it's untrue completely. So for example, in French and Spanish the word for table is, for some reason, marked as feminine. So, "la table," "la mesa," you just have to deal with it. It has been shown that if you are a speaker of one of those languages and you happen to be asked how you would imagine a table talking, then much more often than could possibly be an accident, a French or a Spanish speaker says that the table would talk with a high and feminine voice. So if you're French or Spanish, to you, a table is kind of a girl, as opposed to if you are an English speaker.
Sådan nogle resultater er jo spændende og mange mennesker vil sige at det betyder at du har et specielt verdenssyn, hvis du taler et af de her sprog. Men man skal passe på, for forestil dig at nogen putter os under mikroskop, med os mener jeg os med engelsk som modersmål. Hvilke verdenssyn får man fra Engelsk?
It's hard not to love data like that, and many people will tell you that that means that there's a worldview that you have if you speak one of those languages. But you have to watch out, because imagine if somebody put us under the microscope, the us being those of us who speak English natively. What is the worldview from English?
Så for eksempel, lad os tage en engelsktalende person. Deroppe på skærmen ser I Bono. Han taler engelsk. Jeg går ud fra han har et verdenssyn. Det her er Donald Trump. Han taler på sin vis også en slags engelsk.
So for example, let's take an English speaker. Up on the screen, that is Bono. He speaks English. I presume he has a worldview. Now, that is Donald Trump. In his way, he speaks English as well.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Og her er Fru Kardashian, og hun taler også engelsk. Så her har vi tre personer der alle taler engelsk. Hvilket verdenssyn har de til fælles? Hvilket verdenssyn skabt gennem det engelske sprog har de til fælles? Det er et meget ladet koncept. Og derfor, opstår der gradvist enighed om at sprog kan forme tanker, men det er som regel på lidt obskure, enestående bidder af sproget. Det er ikke fordi man får forskellige briller at se verden med.
And here is Ms. Kardashian, and she is an English speaker, too. So here are three speakers of the English language. What worldview do those three people have in common? What worldview is shaped through the English language that unites them? It's a highly fraught concept. And so gradual consensus is becoming that language can shape thought, but it tends to be in rather darling, obscure psychological flutters. It's not a matter of giving you a different pair of glasses on the world.
Hvis man ikke får nye briller, hvorfor skal man så lære nye sprog? Hvis det ikke kommer til at ændre måden du tænker, Hvad kunne der så være af grunde? Der er et par stykker. En af dem er, at hvis du vil tilegne dig en kultur, hvis du vil omsluttes af den, være en del af den, så uanset om sproget styrer kulturen -- selvom det virker usandsynligt -- hvis du vil tilegne dig kulturen må du til en vis grad mestre det sprog som kulturen nu engang udtrykker sig i. Sådan er det bare.
Now, if that's the case, then why learn languages? If it isn't going to change the way you think, what would the other reasons be? There are some. One of them is that if you want to imbibe a culture, if you want to drink it in, if you want to become part of it, then whether or not the language channels the culture -- and that seems doubtful -- if you want to imbibe the culture, you have to control to some degree the language that the culture happens to be conducted in. There's no other way.
Der findes et interessant eksempel. Jeg går lige lidt ud af en tangent, men I bør virkelig tjekke det ud. Der er en film af den canadiske instruktør Denys Arcand -- eller måske skal jeg sige "Dennis Ar-cand" Hvis I vil slå ham op. Han har lavet en film der hedder "Jesus of Montreal," og mange af karaktererne er livlige, sjove, passionerede spændende fransk-canadiske fransk talender kvinder. Der er en scene i slutningen, hvor de skal tage en ven til et engelsksproget hospital. Her er de nødt til at tale engelsk. Det kan de også godt, men det er ikke deres modersmål, De ville hellere være fri. Og de taler langsommere, de har accent, de er ikke idiomatiske. De her karakterer som du har forelsket dig i, er pludselige tomme skaller af sig selv, skygger af sig selv.
There's an interesting illustration of this. I have to go slightly obscure, but really you should seek it out. There's a movie by the Canadian film director Denys Arcand -- read out in English on the page, "Dennis Ar-cand," if you want to look him up. He did a film called "Jesus of Montreal." And many of the characters are vibrant, funny, passionate, interesting French-Canadian, French-speaking women. There's one scene closest to the end, where they have to take a friend to an Anglophone hospital. In the hospital, they have to speak English. Now, they speak English but it's not their native language, they'd rather not speak English. And they speak it more slowly, they have accents, they're not idiomatic. Suddenly these characters that you've fallen in love with become husks of themselves, they're shadows of themselves.
Når man møder en kultur, og kun oplever folk gennem sådan et filter forstår man aldrig rigtig kulturen. Så hvis kun nogle hundrede sprog vil være tilbage, er én grund til at lære dem, at de er billetter til at kunne deltage i kulturen der tilhører dem der taler sproget, udelukkende fordi det er deres kode. Så det er én grund.
To go into a culture and to only ever process people through that kind of skrim curtain is to never truly get the culture. And so to the extent that hundreds of languages will be left, one reason to learn them is because they are tickets to being able to participate in the culture of the people who speak them, just by virtue of the fact that it is their code. So that's one reason.
Grund nr. 2 Det er blevet vist, at hvis du taler to sprog, er der mindre chance for at få demens, og du er sikkert bedre til at multitaske. Og det er faktorer der begynder tidligt, hvilket burde give dig en idé om, hvornår du skal starte med at give junior eller juniorinden, timer i et andet sprog. Det er sundt at være flersproget.
Second reason: it's been shown that if you speak two languages, dementia is less likely to set in, and that you are probably a better multitasker. And these are factors that set in early, and so that ought to give you some sense of when to give junior or juniorette lessons in another language. Bilingualism is healthy.
Og, for det tredje, er sprog bare frygteligt sjovt. Meget sjovere end folk tit siger. Så, for eksempel, Arabisk: "kataba," han skrev, "yaktubu," han skriver, hun skriver, "uktub," skriv i bydeform. Hvad har de ting til fælles? De har alle det til fælles, at konsonanterne står i midten som grundpiller. De står stiller, og vokalerne danser rundt om konsonanterne. Hvem ville ikke gerne svinge dét rundt i deres mund? Du kan få det fra hebraisk, du kan få det fra Etiopiens hovedsprog, Amharisk. Det er sjovt.
And then, third -- languages are just an awful lot of fun. Much more fun than we're often told. So for example, Arabic: "kataba," he wrote, "yaktubu," he writes, she writes. "Uktub," write, in the imperative. What do those things have in common? All those things have in common the consonants sitting in the middle like pillars. They stay still, and the vowels dance around the consonants. Who wouldn't want to roll that around in their mouths? You can get that from Hebrew, you can get that from Ethiopia's main language, Amharic. That's fun.
Eller, sprog har forskellige ordfølger. At lære at tale med forskellig ordfølge, er som at lære at køre i den forkerte side af vejen når du rejser til nogle lande, eller den følelse du får når du putter troldnød rundt om øjnene og det kilder. Et sprog kan gøre det samme ved dig.
Or languages have different word orders. Learning how to speak with different word order is like driving on the different side of a street if you go to certain country, or the feeling that you get when you put Witch Hazel around your eyes and you feel the tingle. A language can do that to you.
Så, for eksempel, "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," en bog jeg er sikker på vi alle ofte genlæser, ligesom "Moby Dick." Et stykke derfra er: "Ved du hvor jeg fandt ham?" Ved du hvor han var? Han spiste kage i badekaret, Ja han gjorde!" Okay, men, hvis du skal lære det på Mandarin, skal du beherske, "Du kan vide, jeg gjorde hvor ham finde? han var badekar inde i smaske kage, ikke fejl, smaske tygge!" Det føles bare godt, forestil dig at være i stand til at snakke sådan år ind og år ud.
So for example, "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," a book that I'm sure we all often return to, like "Moby Dick." One phrase in it is, "Do you know where I found him? Do you know where he was? He was eating cake in the tub, Yes he was!" Fine. Now, if you learn that in Mandarin Chinese, then you have to master, "You can know, I did where him find? He was tub inside gorging cake, No mistake gorging chewing!" That just feels good. Imagine being able to do that for years and years at a time.
Eller, har I lært lidt cambodiansk? Heller ikke mig, men hvis jeg havde, ville jeg få chancen for smage på, ikke bare de små 13 vokaler, som engelsk har, men op mod 30 forskellige vokaler, som læsker og fryder den cambodianske mund, som lækre delikatesser. Det er hvad sprog kan give dig.
Or, have you ever learned any Cambodian? Me either, but if I did, I would get to roll around in my mouth not some baker's dozen of vowels like English has, but a good 30 different vowels scooching and oozing around in the Cambodian mouth like bees in a hive. That is what a language can get you.
Og hvis det ikke er nok, lever vi i en tid, hvor det aldrig har været nemmere at lære sig selv nye sprog. Man plejede at skulle finde et klasselokale og der ville være en flittig lærer -- en genial lærer i skolen -- Men læren var kun tilstede på bestemte tider hvor du kunne komme og den tid var begrænset. Du måtte gå i skole. Hvis ikke det var muligt, havde du noget der hed en plade Sådan trådte jeg mine barnesko. Optagelserne på en plade kunne kun have en vis længe, eller på kassette bånd, eller på antikviteten vi kalder en CD Ellers havde man bøger, som ikke virkede, det var bare sådan det var.
And more to the point, we live in an era when it's never been easier to teach yourself another language. It used to be that you had to go to a classroom, and there would be some diligent teacher -- some genius teacher in there -- but that person was only in there at certain times and you had to go then, and then was not most times. You had to go to class. If you didn't have that, you had something called a record. I cut my teeth on those. There was only so much data on a record, or a cassette, or even that antique object known as a CD. Other than that you had books that didn't work, that's just the way it was.
I dag kan du ligge ned, på gulvet i din stue, mens du drikker bourbon, og lære dig selv lige det sprog du har lyst til, med skønne systemer, såsom Rosetta Stone. Jeg kan også varmt anbefale det mindre kendte Glossika. Du kan gøre det når som helst, derfor kan du gøre det mere og bedre Du kan nyde din morgenunderholdning på forskellige sprog. Jeg snupper lidt "Dilbert" på forskellige sprog hver eneste morgen; sådan kan man blive bedre. Det kunne ikke ske for 20 år siden da tanken om at have lige det sprog du kunne tænke dig i din lomme, direkte fra din telefon, ville have lydt som science fiction, for selv de mest sofistikerede folk.
Today you can lay down -- lie on your living room floor, sipping bourbon, and teach yourself any language that you want to with wonderful sets such as Rosetta Stone. I highly recommend the lesser known Glossika as well. You can do it any time, therefore you can do it more and better. You can give yourself your morning pleasures in various languages. I take some "Dilbert" in various languages every single morning; it can increase your skills. Couldn't have done it 20 years ago when the idea of having any language you wanted in your pocket, coming from your phone, would have sounded like science fiction to very sophisticated people.
Jeg vil varmt anbefale, at du lærer dig selv andre sprog, end det jeg taler nu, for det har aldrig været nemmere end det er nu. Det er virkelig sjovt. Det vil ikke ændre din hjerne, men det vil være en vild oplevelse.
So I highly recommend that you teach yourself languages other than the one that I'm speaking, because there's never been a better time to do it. It's an awful lot of fun. It won't change your mind, but it will most certainly blow your mind.
Mange tak.
Thank you very much.
(Klapsalver)
(Applause)