The French parliament is debating a new road map for French universities, which includes the proposal of allowing courses to be taught in English. For some, this amounts to a betrayal of the national language and, more specifically, of a particular way at looking at the world - for others it's just accepting the inevitable.

The application, called ‘American English’, consolidates the Department’s English learning content into one location, giving users access to e-books, audiobooks, quizzes, music, and games. The app also offers Wikipedia pages, Google Translate services, and an updated news feed from Voice of America, a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Government.

This past Thanksgiving break, Ben Hubley ’15 traveled to China to compete in the 5th Chinese Bridge Competition, a Chinese proficiency contest for foreign high school students, held in Kunming City. Out of 104 contestants from 45 countries between the ages of 15 and 20, Hubley placed third in the individual competition after a student from Singapore placed first and a student from Russia placed second.

According to UNESCO, “half of the 6,000 plus spoken languages today will disappear by the end of the century” if the world fails to take action to preserve endangered languages.

Furthermore, political movements such as the youth group Nashi have harassed Estonia’s diplomats and vandalized its websites, while “soft-power” organizations like Russkiy Mir (Russian World) actively work to promote cultural and linguistic ties to the homeland.

Azerbaijani, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu are among the languages that can take MTSU students to fascinating, far-flung parts of the world through the Critical Language Scholarship program.

"There is not too much awareness about Polish culture in India or the other way round. We now hope to change that by creating awareness about both the cultures in the other country," said Jerzy Pomianowski, deputy minister of foreign affairs of the republic of Poland, while inaugurating the Polish Institute in New Delhi last week.

The Embassy of Spain officially launched the Spanish club "Que Pas" at the University of Namibia, last week. Que Pas is an initiative of Spanish students at the university and aims to promote the Spanish language while promoting the exchange of cultural experiences, solidarity, good learning relationships and good bilateral ties between Spain and Namibia.