I know what you're thinking. You think I've lost my way, and somebody's going to come on the stage in a minute and guide me gently back to my seat. (Applause) I get that all the time in Dubai. "Here on holiday are you, dear?" (Laughter) "Come to visit the children? How long are you staying?"
Znam što razmišljate. Mislite kako sam izgubila svoj put, i netko će doći na pozornicu za minutu i otpratiti me nježno natrag do mog sjedala. (Pljesak) Dobivam to sve vrijeme u Dubaiju. "Ovdje ste na odmoru, draga?" (Smijeh) "Došli ste u posjet djeci? Koliko dugo ostajete?"
Well actually, I hope for a while longer yet. I have been living and teaching in the Gulf for over 30 years. (Applause) And in that time, I have seen a lot of changes. Now that statistic is quite shocking. And I want to talk to you today about language loss and the globalization of English. I want to tell you about my friend who was teaching English to adults in Abu Dhabi. And one fine day, she decided to take them into the garden to teach them some nature vocabulary. But it was she who ended up learning all the Arabic words for the local plants, as well as their uses -- medicinal uses, cosmetics, cooking, herbal. How did those students get all that knowledge? Of course, from their grandparents and even their great-grandparents. It's not necessary to tell you how important it is to be able to communicate across generations.
Pa zapravo, nadam se još neko vrijeme. Živim i predajem u Zaljevu više od 30 godina. (Pljesak) I tijekom tog vremena, vidjela sam puno promjena. Sada kada je statistika prilično šokantna. A ja želim razgovarati s vama danas o gubitku jezika i globalizaciji engleskim jezikom. Želim vam reći o mom prijatelju koji je podučavao engleski za odrasle u Abu Dhabiju. I jednog lijepog dana, ona je odlučila odvesti ih u vrt naučiti ih neke riječi iz prirode. Ali ona je na kraju završila učeći sve arapske riječi za lokalne biljke, kao i kako se koriste -- ljekovite koristi, kozmetika, kuhanje, biljni. Kako su učenici dobili svo to znanje? Naravno, od svojih djedova pa čak i pradjedova. Nije potrebno objašnjavati vam koliko je to važno biti u stanju komunicirati kroz generacije.
But sadly, today, languages are dying at an unprecedented rate. A language dies every 14 days. Now, at the same time, English is the undisputed global language. Could there be a connection? Well I don't know. But I do know that I've seen a lot of changes. When I first came out to the Gulf, I came to Kuwait in the days when it was still a hardship post. Actually, not that long ago. That is a little bit too early. But nevertheless, I was recruited by the British Council, along with about 25 other teachers. And we were the first non-Muslims to teach in the state schools there in Kuwait. We were brought to teach English because the government wanted to modernize the country and to empower the citizens through education. And of course, the U.K. benefited from some of that lovely oil wealth.
Ali nažalost, danas, jezici umiru po stopi bez presedana. Jezik umre svakih 14 dana. U isto vrijeme, engleski je postao neosporno globalni jezik. Postoji li tu veza? Pa ja ne znam. Ali znam kako sam vidjela puno promjena. Kada sam prvi put došla u Zaljev, došla sam u Kuvajt u danima kada je još uvijek to bila teška destinacija. Zapravo, ne tako davno. To je malo prerano. No ipak, bila sam regrutirana od strane British Councila zajedno s oko 25 drugih nastavnika. I mi smo bili prvi ne-muslimani koji su podučavali u državnim školama u Kuvajtu. Došli smo podučavati engleski jer je vlada htjela modernizirati zemlju i osposobiti građane kroz obrazovanje. I naravno, Velika Britanija je imala koristi od svog tog lijepog naftnog bogatstva.
Okay. Now this is the major change that I've seen -- how teaching English has morphed from being a mutually beneficial practice to becoming a massive international business that it is today. No longer just a foreign language on the school curriculum, and no longer the sole domain of mother England, it has become a bandwagon for every English-speaking nation on earth. And why not? After all, the best education -- according to the latest World University Rankings -- is to be found in the universities of the U.K. and the U.S. So everybody wants to have an English education, naturally. But if you're not a native speaker, you have to pass a test.
U redu. To je velika promjena koju sam vidjela -- kako učenje engleskog preobražava od toga da bude obostrano korisna praksa do toga da postane masivni međunarodni posao, koji je i danas. On nije više samo strani jezik u nastavnom planu i programu. I više nije jedina domena majke Engleske. Ono je postalo prevodnikom za svako englesko govorno područje na Zemlji. I zašto ne? Uostalom, najbolje obrazovanje -- prema najnovijem rangiranju World University -- nalazi se na sveučilištima iz Velike Britanije i SAD-a. Tako, prirodno, svatko želi imati englesko obrazovanje. Ali, ako niste izvorni govornik, morate proći test.
Now can it be right to reject a student on linguistic ability alone? Perhaps you have a computer scientist who's a genius. Would he need the same language as a lawyer, for example? Well, I don't think so. We English teachers reject them all the time. We put a stop sign, and we stop them in their tracks. They can't pursue their dream any longer, 'til they get English. Now let me put it this way: if I met a monolingual Dutch speaker who had the cure for cancer, would I stop him from entering my British University? I don't think so. But indeed, that is exactly what we do. We English teachers are the gatekeepers. And you have to satisfy us first that your English is good enough. Now it can be dangerous to give too much power to a narrow segment of society. Maybe the barrier would be too universal.
Može li to biti pravedno odbiti učenika samo zbog jezičnih sposobnosti? Možda ste računalni znanstvenik koji je genije. Hoće li on trebati isti jezik kao odvjetnik? Pa ja ne mislim tako. Mi učitelji engleskog ih odbacujemo svo vrijeme. Mi smo stavili znak stop, i mi ih zaustavljamo u njihovom razvoju. Oni više ne mogu slijediti svoj san, dok ne savladaju engleski. Dozvolite da vam to predstavim na ovaj način, ako sam upoznala nizozemskog govornika koji je imao lijek za rak, bih li ga spriječila da uđe u moje britansko sveučilište? Sigurno ne. Ali doista, to je upravo ono što mi radimo. Mi učitelji engleskog smo vratari. I morate nas zadovoljiti prvo tako da je vaš engleski dovoljno dobar. Sada, to može biti opasno dati previše moći uskom segmentu društva. Možda će prepreka biti previše univerzalna.
Okay. "But," I hear you say, "what about the research? It's all in English." So the books are in English, the journals are done in English, but that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It feeds the English requirement. And so it goes on. I ask you, what happened to translation? If you think about the Islamic Golden Age, there was lots of translation then. They translated from Latin and Greek into Arabic, into Persian, and then it was translated on into the Germanic languages of Europe and the Romance languages. And so light shone upon the Dark Ages of Europe. Now don't get me wrong; I am not against teaching English, all you English teachers out there. I love it that we have a global language. We need one today more than ever. But I am against using it as a barrier. Do we really want to end up with 600 languages and the main one being English, or Chinese? We need more than that. Where do we draw the line? This system equates intelligence with a knowledge of English, which is quite arbitrary.
U redu. "Ali", čujem kako kažete, "što je s istraživanjem? To je sve na engleskom jeziku." I knjige su na engleskom jeziku, časopisi su napravljeni na engleskom jeziku, ali to je samoispunjavajuće proročanstvo. Ono hrani engleski zahtjev. I tako ide dalje. Pitam vas, što se dogodilo s prijevodom? Ako mislite o islamskom Zlatnom dobu, bilo je puno prijevoda tada. Oni su prevodili s latinskog i grčkog na arapski, na perzijski, a onda je prevedeno na germanske jezike Europe i romanske jezike. I tako je svjetlost zasjala u tamnom dobu Europe. Sada, nemojte me krivo shvatiti; Ja nisam protiv poučavanja engleskoga jezika, svi vi nastavnici engleskog. Volim što imamo globalni jezik. Trebamo jedan danas više nego ikad. Ali ja sam protiv toga da ga se koristi kao barijeru. Želite li zaista ukinuti 600 jezika i ostaviti glavni engleski, ili kineski? Trebamo više od toga. Gdje ćemo povući crtu? Ovaj sustav izjednačava inteligenciju sa znanjem engleskog jezika što je prilično proizvoljno.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
And I want to remind you that the giants upon whose shoulders today's intelligentsia stand did not have to have English, they didn't have to pass an English test. Case in point, Einstein. He, by the way, was considered remedial at school because he was, in fact, dyslexic. But fortunately for the world, he did not have to pass an English test. Because they didn't start until 1964 with TOEFL, the American test of English. Now it's exploded. There are lots and lots of tests of English. And millions and millions of students take these tests every year. Now you might think, you and me, "Those fees aren't bad, they're okay," but they are prohibitive to so many millions of poor people. So immediately, we're rejecting them.
I želim vas podsjetiti da divovi na čijim ramenima danas inteligencija stoji nisu morali imati engleski, nisu morali proći test engleskog. Konkretno, Einstein. On je, usput, smatran slabijim učenikom u školi jer je, u stvari, imao disleksiju. No, na sreću za svijet, on nije morao proći engleski test. Budući da oni nisu započeti do 1964. s TOEFL-om, američkim testom engleskog jezika. To je eksplodiralo. Postoji jako puno testova engleskog jezika. I milijuni i milijuni učenika prolaze te testove svake godine. Sada možda mislite, tebi i meni, te naknade nisu velike, one su u redu, ali one su previsoke za tolike milijune siromašnih ljudi. Tako ih odmah, odbacujemo.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
It brings to mind a headline I saw recently: "Education: The Great Divide." Now I get it, I understand why people would want to focus on English. They want to give their children the best chance in life. And to do that, they need a Western education. Because, of course, the best jobs go to people out of the Western Universities, that I put on earlier. It's a circular thing.
To me podsjeća na naslov koji sam nedavno vidjela: "Obrazovanje: Velika podijela". Razumijem, razumijem zašto se ljudi usredotočavaju na engleski. Oni žele dati svojoj djeci najbolju priliku u životu. A za to, oni trebaju zapadno obrazovanje. Jer, naravno, najbolji poslovi idu ljudima sa zapadnih sveučilišta, koje sam objasnila ranije. To je cirkulirajuća stvar.
Okay. Let me tell you a story about two scientists, two English scientists. They were doing an experiment to do with genetics and the forelimbs and the hind limbs of animals. But they couldn't get the results they wanted. They really didn't know what to do, until along came a German scientist who realized that they were using two words for forelimb and hind limb, whereas genetics does not differentiate and neither does German. So bingo, problem solved. If you can't think a thought, you are stuck. But if another language can think that thought, then, by cooperating, we can achieve and learn so much more.
U redu. Ispričat ću vam priču o dvoje znanstvenika, dva engleska znanstvenika. Oni su radili na pokusu vezenim uz genetiku i prednjim i stražnjima ekstremitetima životinja. Ali nisu mogli dobiti rezultate koje su htjeli. Stvarno nisu znali što učiniti, dok nije došao njemački znanstvenik koji je shvatio da se oni koriste s dvije riječi za prednje i stražnje ekstremitete, a genetika ih ne razlikuje a niti njemački. Dakle, bingo, problem riješen. Ako se ne možete sjetiti misli, vi ste zaglavljeni. Ali ako se drugi jezik može dosjetiti te misli, onda, kroz suradnju, možemo postići i naučiti puno više.
My daughter came to England from Kuwait. She had studied science and mathematics in Arabic. It's an Arabic-medium school. She had to translate it into English at her grammar school. And she was the best in the class at those subjects. Which tells us that when students come to us from abroad, we may not be giving them enough credit for what they know, and they know it in their own language. When a language dies, we don't know what we lose with that language.
Moja kćer, je došla u Englesku iz Kuvajta. Ona je studirala matematiku i znanost na arapskom jeziku. To je arapska srednja škola. To je morala prevesti na engleski za njenu gimnaziju. I bila je najbolja u klasi u tim predmetima. Što nam govori da, kada nam studenti dođu iz inozemstva, možda im ne dajemo dovoljno kredita za ono što oni znaju, i oni to znaju na svom jeziku. Kada jezik umre, ne znamo što smo izgubili s tim jezikom.
This is -- I don't know if you saw it on CNN recently -- they gave the Heroes Award to a young Kenyan shepherd boy who couldn't study at night in his village, like all the village children, because the kerosene lamp, it had smoke and it damaged his eyes. And anyway, there was never enough kerosene, because what does a dollar a day buy for you? So he invented a cost-free solar lamp. And now the children in his village get the same grades at school as the children who have electricity at home. (Applause) When he received his award, he said these lovely words: "The children can lead Africa from what it is today, a dark continent, to a light continent." A simple idea, but it could have such far-reaching consequences.
To je -- ne znam ako ste to vidjeli na CNN-u u zadnje vrijeme -- dali su nagradu za heroje mladom kenijskom pastiru koji nije mogao učiti noću u svom selu kao i sva djeca iz sela, jer su mu kerozinska lampa i njezin dim oštetili oči. I svakako, nikada nije bilo dovoljno kerozina, jer što vam dolar dnevno može kupiti? Tako je izumio besplatne solarne svjetiljke. I sada djeca u njegovom selu mogu dobiti iste ocjene u školi kao djeca koja imaju struju u kući. (Pljesak) Kad je primio svoju nagradu, izrekao je te divne riječi: "Djeca mogu odvesti Afriku od onoga što je danas, tamni kontinent, u svjetli kontinent." Jednostavna ideja, ali bi mogla imati takve dalekosežne posljedice.
People who have no light, whether it's physical or metaphorical, cannot pass our exams, and we can never know what they know. Let us not keep them and ourselves in the dark. Let us celebrate diversity. Mind your language. Use it to spread great ideas.
Ljudi koji nemaju svjetla, bilo da je to fizički ili metaforički, ne mogu proći naše ispite, i nikada ne možemo saznati što oni znaju. Nemojmo ih držati, a niti sebe, u mraku. Idemo slaviti različitost. Brinite se o vašem jeziku. Koristite ga za širenje velikih ideja.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
Thank you very much.
Puno hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)