As regards Asian languages, few are based in or greatly influenced by either a theology or a philosophy. The hallmarks of English. The societies they have emerged from are and have been ...GENERALLY'... isolationist, dictatorial, introspective and introvert.

Yes sure learn Asian languages for commercial benefit but learn Latin first. I think it is best to know oneself before one can establish sensible relationships with others. How can you understand difference if you cannot first know or understand yourself.

Finally Kevin Rudd's use of Mandarin is not a good example. While he spoke openly to the Chinese about Tibet ... the response from the representative of the Chinese people should have been quite telling.

It was reported in the Australian media the Chinese President Hu lectured Rudd.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23570349-18544,00.html

I'd love to see that lecture reported in more depth and more widely in Australia.

It would dispute the claim:

'... the depth of his fluency and cultural knowledge that his “rhetoric” was perceived as “more tactful and less nasty”.'

Hu showed he certainly didn't think along those lines.

Keith, I'll try to swat gently as I suspect you're just being a gadfly with your blue-chip-and-ivy hurrahs for "western civilization", empah, etc. If, however, you really are defending your Khyber pass against the dreaded mongol hordes, then I should defer to BAYGON to give you a thorough spray.

Your call for greater self-knowledge seems funny in the context of Latin and Ancient Rome. In many ways, the Romans had more in common with their oriental counterparts than with modern westerners. Take for example feudal Japan's seppuku and the Roman "falling on one's sword": the same suicidal motive and concept, just different techniques of swordsmanship. And no western fantasy about "valuing human life more highly" either. Then there's Rome's imperialist and theocratic influences and their many Asian parallels; not fundamentally democratic. Indeed, so many distinctions between "Europe" and "Asia" appear so contrived when we trace the Indic-Caucasian commonalities underlying both hemispheres' religious and linguistic heritage.

I don't doubt that Claudia and Keith have some decent grasp of Latin, but there's an obvious cop-out or even self-indulgent fantasy lurking behind all the warmth around dead languages (and artificial ones like the previous contributor's [D]esperanto). Where are the native speakers who can truly best judge your ability in these languages?

The student cannot really engage such languages properly i.e., in a lived, authentic encounter involving communication in real societies. Where can the Latin student confront the necessary challenge of colloquial Latin in a market or at a party? Just as Esperanto is most at home in a test tube, Latin exists now as an archival or archaeological language; useful for sciences, law and other languages, but not as the properly dynamic challenge and reward we can find in our many lived languages.

So step into the arena Keith et al, and take on a real language to see how you perform. Make a decent effort and the natives may either laugh or salute you. Avoid the challenge altogether and its the lions' meal time: we barbarians will not even have to give 'thumbs down'.

Do you want to use latin in a party setting? Go to the Vatican! Great parties conducted in latin.

Kevin Rudd may speak Chinese but there are very few Australians of non-Chinese background who will ever have any occasion to do so. The obsession with Asian languages is putting our entire programme of language learning in schools at risk. We are going to end up with even fewer students who are able to use a second language. My sons were required to learn Chinese at school. They were also able to choose between French or German. They had twice the contact hours in Chinese as they started in their first year and did not start French until the first year of the secondary school. They ceased learning Chinese two years before the end of the secondary school. It was proving too time consuming and they still could not read a simple newspaper text. They took French at the school certificate level and have used the language successfully on holiday in France, Quebec and French Polynesia. In China they found they could not make themselves understood apart from a few polite phrases. Their school has 'an excellent reputation' (an outside assessment) for the teaching of Chinese.
I suggest that second-language learning is an essential part of any education but the languages, the way they are taught and the time devoted to them all need to be considered - and the fact that a language has x number of words for snow, direction, gum trees or anything else does not have to be only part of a language lesson.
Let's get real about this debate and stop being in awe of a Prime Minister who speaks Mandarin. It does not mean that we all need to imitate him or toady to the Chinese hierarchy. There are also other politicians who speak a second language and not because it is their mother tongue. Most of them don't feel the same need to show off.

[This discussion is definitely a crossed wire! Refer to my and Communicat's other postings at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7307&page=0]

Communicat: if you set low standards then you will probably be lucky to achieve even such low standards anyway. As I mention in the side discussion at : such Romance and Germanic languages are almost as close as dialects when compared against a proper diversity of languages. I mean, Communicat's timid mentality of mediocrity and failure does not even seem able to contemplate Slavonic languages, despite their firm European grounding. Why not? Russian, etc., would be deemed too hard for Communicat.

Imagine a similar attitude among the polyglot Hungarians or Finns, renowned for their widespread mastery of several European languages. Both peoples do not speak Indo-European languages as their first - they are (forgive the tautology) Finno-Ugric. But who among them would propose the absurd notion that they should avoid European languages because of the deeper structural and lexical differences, and despite geographical proximity. Imagine the nervous Budapest professor advocating greater stress on Japanese, Korean and Mongol tongues because of their smoother connection to old Magyar!

Whatever language k.rudd speaks he hasnt said much so far.

l've got 2 languages after english. At the folks we sometimes speaks a 3 way hybrid of Span-glish-talian.

l dunno about all the romantic and idealised notions positted as resulting from being able to speak in different languages. Its hard enough using one language correctly to communicate with clarity and reason. What matters is whats being said, rather than being able to swear and say nothing in more than one language. Personally, english is my favoured choice when doing this.