Language and technology are both culture-bound. While technology arises from the needs of a particular culture, language helps in the storage, preservation, and transmission of both the culture and the technology from one generation to another. Language is one of man’s most powerful developmental tools. Language determines to a large extent how one’s thought processes and brain functionality are wired. It determines how one perceives, interprets, reconstructs, and transforms their immediate environment into a more conducive habitat. However, a fundamental problem is that many learn and receive formal education today in the languages foreign to them. This, to some extent, hampers perception and understanding during instructional delivery, especially in areas where there is a discrepancy between the daily mode of communication and the official channel of academic instruction. The world would be richer if all people were to revert to their indigenous languages or to those of their earliest upbringing where they feel most natural and comfortable firsthand. The primary objective of this article therefore is to underline the irreplaceable and indispensable necessity of the need for academics and educational policymakers to prioritize once more the appropriateness of promoting as tools for teaching and learning, both the so called international languages and the indigenous ones. The immense spiritual density of local or indigenous languages provides them with such non-negligible keys for unlocking greater human potentialities over the ages in less time than their exclusion could ever achieve.
References
[1]
Asia Society (2023). Chinese: An Expanding Field. Asia Society and the College Board Website. https://asiasociety.org/education/chinese-expanding-field#
[2]
China Education Info (2008). Academic Year and Language of Instruction. https://www.chinaeducation.info/education-system/academic-year.html
[3]
Dewey, J. (2008). Nature, Communication and Meaning. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), Experience and Nature: the Later Works, 1925-1953 (pp. 132-162). Southern Illinois University Press.
[4]
Getzoff, M (2023). Most Technologically Advanced Countries in the World. https://gfmag.com/author/marc-getzoff/
[5]
Japan Educational System—Overview (2023). https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/738/Japan-EDUCATIONAL-SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html
[6]
Maher, J. C. (2017). Language Policy and Education in Japan. In T. McCarty, & S. May (Eds.), Language Policy and Political Issues in Education (pp. 1-15). Springer. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-02320-5_36-2 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02320-5_36-2
[7]
Corey, M. (2017, June 7). How Much Foreign Languages Is Being Taught in U.S. Schools? https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/how-much-foreign-language-is-being-taught-in-u-s-schools/2017/06
[8]
Mullis, I. V. S., Martin, M. O., Goh, S., & Cotter, K. (2016). TIMSS 2015 Encyclopedia: Education Policy and Curriculum in Mathematics and Science. Boston College, TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center. https://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2015/encyclopedia/
[9]
New World Encyclopedia (2017, July 26). Hans-Georg Gadamer. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Hans-Georg_Gadamer&oldid=1005840
[10]
Okonkwo, J. I. (sine data). Perception and Human Language: Some Issues in Worldhood Space. In D. O. Asawalam, E. Udochu, & C. K. Okite (Eds.), Contemporary Issues for Authentic Existence (pp. 1112-1120). SNAAP Press Nigeria Ltd.
[11]
Sapir, E. (1985). The Status of Linguistics as a Science. In D. G. Mandelbaum (Ed.), Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality (p. 162). University of California Press.
[12]
Shimizu, Y. (2022, January 5). Cutting Edge|Indigenous Languages: Gateways to the World’s Cultural Diversity. UNESCO. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/cutting-edge-indigenous-languages-gateways-worlds-cultural-diversity
[13]
Sunak’s Speech at AI Safety Summit: 2 November, 2023, Bletchley Park, UK. https://www.youtube.com/live/jm1Re0rTxw?si=XyMTkvanN2cVEmNc
[14]
Thiele, L. P. (2014). Timely Meditations: Martin Heidegger and Postmodern Politics (p. 124). Princeton University Press.
[15]
Tucker, L. (2022, September 26). Study in Germany in English. Top Universities. https://www.topuniversities.com/where-to-study/europe/germany/study-germany-english
[16]
Ubong, E. U. (2011). The Making of Arms in Civil War Biafra, 1967-1970. The Calaber Historical Journal, 5, 339-358. https://www.academia.edu https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=_NdzRsAAAJ&citation_for_view=NdzRsAAAJ:qjMakFHDy7sC
[17]
Uzgalis, W. (2022). John Locke. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2022 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2022/entries/locke/
[18]
Whorf, B. L. (1964). The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language. In J. B. Carroll (Ed.), Language Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (pp. 134-159). Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.