1 . It is claimed that, on average, one in five of school-aged children in Britain have a first language other than English. These languages are often labelled as “community languages” with some of them identified as the “languages for the future” in terms of supply and demand. For instance, the top five “languages for the future” are Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, Arabic and German. Yet, numerous reports point out, support for the community languages in the UK education system, from early years to further and higher education, is seriously lacking.

Part of the problem is the labelling. Languages that are part of the school and university curriculum are usually called “modern languages”. The classification of which language is a modern language for schools, and which is a community language seems somewhat unreasonable and largely a result of the history of language teaching in this country. It is also connected to Britain’s relationship with and attitudes towards the rest of the world. Languages of immigrants from outside Europe are community languages, whereas those from within Europe are modern languages.

It is high time to critically reflect whether it is still necessary and useful to categorize languages. The language curriculum for schools and universities should be broadened to include community languages. We must not forget that many of the so-called community languages in Britain are major national and international languages. We need to have a global perspective on languages. The inclusion of community languages in the education system can also have the added benefits of strengthening community ties by valuing the languages of minority groups.

In the meantime, a word of caution is needed as for the identification of languages “languages for the future”. It is usually done based on the roles specific languages play in the UK’s future prosperity, security and influence in the world. While that maybe an admirable objective, it could potentially lead to a rank of usefulness among different languages, with some being regarded as more useful, and therefore will receive more institutional support than others. However, a Global Britain needs to invest in upgrading and expanding its multilingual capacity. A person who knows more than one language can get more benefits in their future life. And that should begin by showing respect for the multilingual talents in different communities.

3 . By experiencing the sensations of the reality around us, we create a subjective understanding of what reality is. Language came into being with the development of mankind. It requires the use of more than one of the basic five human senses, which shows that language is a complex process that brings huge power along with it. This power is so strong that it can demonstrate that language can influence the way we think. Language can be an amazing tool for change, both positive and negative.   

Language can completely change our perception of time. The changed perception of time isn’t the only way language affects how we think. Our sense of self is also significantly changed, especially if a person is bilingual (双语的). Depending on which language a person who is bilingual is using, his sense of self changes. The differences may even become so great as to change his personalities.

Word teaching plays an important part in education, so to expand language is to expand the ability to think. We can see this in children, whose thinking develops hand in hand with language. It helps a great deal to increase their “word power” by learning new words in order to develop new ideas and new ways of thinking.        

The increase in “word power” extends to those who lack the sense of hearing, thanks to the modern invention of sign language. Since the beginning, sign language has allowed deaf people to become fully literate. Whether we are deaf or not, language transforms experience and connects us to the past as well as the future. Be mindful of how important language is to our perception of reality and all its various aspects, and we can empower ourselves beyond our present limitations and expand our awareness.

4 . A great many studies have been conducted to distinguish between babies learning their first language and children or adults learning a second language.

A baby’s brain comes into the world prepared to learn any human language they hear spoken around them. The brain gets the same stimulation(刺激)from exposure to any language, although it adapts to certain features of the language such as specific sounds. Learning a language is natural for all babies, like learning to walk.

In fact, babies can even acquire two or more languages together, if they hear them regularly. The languages can be similar, like Portuguese and Spanish, or very different, like English and Chinese. Their bilingual(双语的)brains already understand something about the ways that languages can be different.

But scientists found that changes exist if people already speak a language and are learning a second one. A language that is very different to the one they already know is going to seem harder than the one that’s quite similar to their first language.

For example, if your first language is English, Spanish words like león for “lion” or sal for “salt” are going to be easier to learn than, say, Chinese shīzi and yán, or Turkish aslan and tuz. To make English words plural(复数), you usually add-s or-es, and the same is true in Spanish, so “lions” is leones. But in Turkish “lions” is aslanlar, and in Chinese there’s no difference between “lion” and “lions” at all. It’s mainly the difference from your first language that can make another language “easier” or “harder”, not the language itself.

Scientists used to think that there was a cutoff point, at around the age of 12 or 13, after which it was impossible to learn a new language completely. We now know that young people can learn another language throughout their teen years. After that, it does become harder — but not impossible — to reach high levels of fluency in a new language.

7 . After analyzing 14.5 billion words used in daily news coverage in 2021, The Oxford English Dictionary has chosen “vax” as the Word of the Year.

Oxford Languages, the publisher of the dictionary, reported that “Vax”, the shortened term for “vaccine”, has injected itself into the bloodstream of the English language, and is a catchy and punchy word for 2021.

A contributing factor to its rise in 2021— aside from its obvious relation to the COVID vaccine drive— is its adaptability, according to Fiona McPherson, a senior editor of The Oxford English Dictionary. It can mean either vaccine or vaccination as a noun and vaccinate as a verb, and it is the root of many other phrases such as “vax cards”, “vax passports”, and “getting vaxxied”. The word has also been changed into other inventive words like vaxxie, a selfie taken during or immediately before or after one’s vaccination. “It has made the most striking impact,” said Fiona MePherson.

Vax and vaxx are both accepted spellings, but the form with one x is more common. It was first recorded in English in 1799, while its derivatives (衍生词) “vaccinate” and “vaccination” both first appeared in 1800. All of these words ultimately came from the Latin word “vacca”, which means “cow”. According to The Oxford English Dictionary, this is due to English physician and scientist Edward Jenner’s pioneering work on vaccination against smallpox in the late 1790s and early 1800s.

“The word’s highest frequency in usage caught our attention first. Then we ran the analysis and a story started to emerge, revealing how ‘vax’ sat at the centre of our preoccupations this year,” Casper Grathwohl, the president of Oxford Languages, said in an interview. “No word better captures the atmosphere of the year than ‘vax’”

8 . 2020 was a really tough year. It affected our lives in many ways and made other serious issues even more difficult to address. There was also social and political unrest in the United States and other places around the world.

All of this added up to some big, stressful year called 2020. In fact, 2020 is a song filled with low, depressing notes.

In English, “low notes” are unpleasant things that happen during an event, any event. So if something ends on a low note, it ends in an unpleasant way. For example, once I took a fun vacation. But it ended on a low note. On the last day, all my money was stolen. Then my flight home was delayed. So, I had to sleep in an airport for two days!

However, we also have another phrase-- a “high note”! In English, a “high note” is something pleasant or gratifying.

So, to end something on a high note is to end it with something pleasant. It can also mean to end something at the best possible point -- for example, at the point when something is most successful.

Anything can be a high note, if you choose it to be. For example, 2020 was a disaster. But for me it ended on a high note. One cold night in late December, I saw on owl in a tree near my house. I love owls but had never seen one so close before! That was a high note for me.

Hopefully, all of us were able to end 2020 on a high note.