Guess which is the fastest growing language in America?

[enhanced_deficit]

So?

You see no noteworthy impact at all from this growing trend in America?

Arabic is fastest-growing language at U.S. colleges

American Singer Jennifer Grout Could Win 'Arabs Got Talent,' Some Question Her Nationality

The Huffington Post | By Antonia Blumberg
12/05/2013 12:27 pm EST

It has been nearly 40 years since the legendary Arab diva, Umm Kulthum, passed away. Now, the most unlikely candidate may follow in her footsteps: A 23-year-old American girl, who as it turns out, hardly speaks a word of Arabic.
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Jennifer Grout was a student at Canada's McGill University when she fell in love with classical Arab music.
"She sings from the heart. She loves the Arab music. She loves the rhythm, she loves the scales, the intonation. It's just incredible to hear it," her mother, Susan Montgomery-Grout, told ABC.
For her graduation present, Grout's mother said, the singer asked for a one-way ticket to Morocco to pursue a career in classical Arab music. Fast forward a year or so and Grout landed herself a spot as a contestant on 'Arabs Got Talent.' On Saturday December 7, she will compete in the finals and could make big waves if she wins.

Nope. The OP is wrong. The fastest growing language in America is Oomphish.

Oomphish has two words, a noun, gorvel (meaning person), and a verb gurpson (meaning hiccup).

Before I wrote this post, there were zero people who knew this language. By the time I finished writing it, there was one, an increase of infinity percent in about a minute. As soon as one person in America reads this, that number will double. It may well increase 100-fold by tomorrow.

You have just created two dozen new linguistic analysts/management jobs at various US freedom agencies so they can get to bottom of this.

I enjoyed the article and found it very informative. Remember, though, that there is a difference between "the fastest-growing foreign language taught at U.S. colleges and universities" and "the fastest growing language in America."

P.S. From what I understand Spanish is by far the fastest growing language in the U.S.

As a second language, I suspect learning English is huge in the U.S.

P.S. II - I'm glad people are learning Arabic here and at an increasing rate.

Good points, article headline is more accurate than mine on second thought. It is still significant that in academics this lang has as many new programs popping up at US colleges.


In other news:

Lost in Translation: How the Army Wastes Linguists Like Me



It’s no secret that the U.S. Army has a language barrier to overcome in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A decade of war has led an English-constrained military to seek all kinds of quick fixes, from translator gadgets to private contractors — something Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lamented this week.
But more galling is the fact that the few soldiers who do speak Arabic, Pashto and Dari are still being wasted, even in the war zones where they’re needed the most. I know — because I was one of them.
The Army spends years and hundreds of thousands of dollars training each of its foreign-language speakers. At the same time, it uses costly contractors to work the same jobs for which its own linguists have trained. In Iraq and Afghanistan, private-sector linguists are largely replacing their military counterparts rather than augmenting their numbers, an expensive redundancy.


In the fall of 2006, I enlisted in the Army as a cryptologic linguist, one of the soldiers who translate foreign communications. A year of college Arabic hadn’t been enough to persuade intelligence-agency recruiters of my James Bond potential. Spook agencies assured me during a string of polite job-fair letdowns that the military was the place to start getting real-world experience. So off I went to boot camp.
More than two years of training followed, both in Arabic and the specific intelligence duties I’d need to perform in-country. In March 2009, I stepped off a Blackhawk at Forward Operating Base Delta, a large base near al-Kut in southeastern Iraq. I figured I’d be translating captured Arabic communications to alert combat troops of danger.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/08/lost-in-translation-how-the-army-wastes-linguists-like-me/

 

[BuddyRey]

In the grand scheme of things, none of this matters, because in 1,000 years, English (as we know it) will be completely incomparable to anything we speak or write now. And if you doubt this...try reading the original, untranslated Canterbury Tales, let alone something even older, like Beowulf. Hell, 31st century English might sound like one of those African languages with all the clicks, purrs, and bird sounds for all we know.

In the same way that boards and councils of eggheads try to bring The Bible and other literary works into readable English today, there will come a time when they have to do the exact same thing to all of our great cultural artifacts. Just imagine a roomful of button-down PhD's arguing over what, exactly, Tony Montana might have meant when he likened so-and-so to a cockroach, or held up a bazooka and called it his little friend.

 

[tod evans]

I'm still workin' on English..:o

 

[Demigod]

You guessed it right:



Enrollment in Arabic classes grew 127 percent nationally from 2002 to 2006, by far the largest jump of any language, according to the Modern Language Association.

At the UI, enrollment in Arabic classes tripled from their launch in fall 2006 to fall 2009 — from 34 students to 102 students. The UI in December added an Arabic minor.

This is like an African dictator ( can't remember which one ) boasting about growing his air force by 200% in one year when the reality was that they had 0 planes and then bought 2.

102 students in a over 300 million country is a joke.