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Is Computer Code a Foreign Language?
Maryland’s legislature is considering a bill to allow computer coding courses to fulfill the foreign language graduation requirement for high school. A similar bill passed the Florida State Senate in 2017 (but was ultimately rejected by the full Legislature), and a federal version proposed by Senators Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, and Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, is being considered in Congress.
The animating idea behind these bills is that computer coding has become a valuable skill. This is certainly true. But the proposal that foreign language learning can be replaced by computer coding knowledge is misguided: It stems from a widely held but mistaken belief that science and technology education should take precedence over subjects like English, history and foreign languages.
As a professor of languages and literatures, I am naturally skeptical of such a position. I fervently believe that foreign language learning is essential for children’s development into informed and productive citizens of the world. But even more urgent is my alarm at the growing tendency to accept and even foster the decline of the sort of interpersonal human contact that learning languages both requires and cultivates.
[...] The difference between natural and computer languages is not merely one of degree, with natural languages’ involving vocabularies that are several orders of magnitude larger than those of computer languages. Natural languages aren’t just more complex versions of the algorithms with which we teach machines to do tasks; they are also the living embodiments of our essence as social animals. We express our love and our losses, explore beauty, justice and the meaning of our existence, and even come to know ourselves all through natural languages.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by istartedi on Monday March 25 2019, @08:02AM (5 children)
As much as I would have liked to drop French for a programming language, that would not have been good. Learning a foreign language doesn't just involve an alternative syntax and vocabulary. It also encompasses culture, cuisine, history, and politics. It opens doors into other *human* societies.
Sorry. No easy outs. At some point we all specialize, but while you're building the base of a good general education you need the technical *and* the non-technical studies.
Allowing techies to duck out of language requirements, even just the 1 or 2 years of basic Spanish that a lot of my fellow students took as the easiest option, is cheating them out of something that can broaden their horizons.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @10:40AM (2 children)
Fuck off, you pompous douche bag.
(Score: 3, Funny) by theluggage on Monday March 25 2019, @11:11AM (1 child)
At least one of those words is French...
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 25 2019, @11:50AM
Exactly. If we steal the useful bits of another language, we don't have to waste time learning it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:00PM
We can do that without learning French.
Culture: be lazy, demand that the government make you impossible to fire, go on strike, riot
Cuisine: whine... I mean wine, and cheese. They eat horses and snails.
History: attacked Russia in the winter and lost, defeated by Germany and saved by the USA, did that again, and now Jews are not safe in Paris due to Islam
Politics: a battle between globalist socialists, nationalist socialists, and globalist communists
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @07:20PM
Techs need foreign language. If not just wel round. But to understand that dates have many many formats. Ca;aendars have different alignments. Names are not just First and Last, let along character sets and sorting rules.