Goethe German language institute pushes for greater multilingualism in Europe

The Goethe Institute, Germany's language and culture institute, continues to boost awareness of the importance of multilingualism. Experts say a lack of knowledge of foreign languages in Europe is hurting the economy.

The latest involvement by the Goethe Institute in promoting the learning of foreign languages is an event called "Languages without Borders" which premiered in Berlin. It is one of around 30 projects around the world that the Goethe Institute has financed in the past two years in an effort to promote multilingualism.

"We believe that with such projects, we can put a spotlight on the issue of multilingualism, and then later we can pinpoint a strategy of how we're going to improve multilingualism next year or the year after that," said Matthias Makowski, head of the language department at the Goethe Institute.

"Languages without Borders" was established to raise awareness of the importance of multilingualism in modern times, according to Makowski.

Since 2007, the European Union has had a Commission for Multilingualism, to strengthen language diversity. In comparison to other continents - or even individual countries - Europe falls short. For example, India alone has 22 official languages. This makes it easy for people there to become multilingual, said Anil Bhatti, a German language professor in New Delhi.

"What you have in Europe is a situation where multilingualism is attained through the learning of foreign languages," Bhatti said. "In India, somebody from the north, who speaks Hindi, wouldn't consider Tamil a foreign language. This is just another Indian language. Learning a foreign language means learning a European language, for example. And for an Indian person, this could be their fourth or fifth language."

To speak four or five languages is now the exception in Europe. Today, as immigration to Europe grows, language plays a key role in the integration of new arrivals. In the EU, many countries require immigrants to submit to language testing.

However, Piet van Avermaet from the Association of Language Testing in Europe is skeptical about making such tests compulsory.

"When you take language as a condition for integration, it often does not work. It's often the other way around," van Avermaet said. "When you reduce the problems of discrimination when you improve the opportunities for people to find a job; when you improve your policy in relation to social integration then at the same time the process of language acquisition emerges."

A lack of knowledge of foreign languages can even affect the economy, according to a study led by the EU Commission. In 2006, it found that at least 945,000 small and medium-sized companies may be losing business due to a lack of language competence.

Germany pushes for Afghan Troop Withdrawl

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier wants to create the conditions for an international troop withdrawal from Afghanistan within four years, his spokesman said.

Aides to Steinmeier, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s main challenger in Sept. 27 elections, have drafted 10 points for a possible pullout accord with the Afghan government, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner told reporters in Berlin today.

While Steinmeier won’t set a specific pullout date, he defined “a worthwhile aim over the next four years, and that worthwhile aim is to set conditions to begin an international withdrawal,” Ploetner said.

Afghanistan is heating up the election campaign after a German commander ordered a NATO air strike that may have killed civilians. Two tanker trucks seized by Taliban militants were targeted in the Sept. 4 strike, killing scores of people in an area where International Security Assistance Force troops are under German command.

The German Foreign Ministry plan includes possibly withdrawing about 500 German troops from the city of Faizabad by 2011 and turning the base into a training camp for local security forces, the German magazine Der Spiegel reports in this week’s edition.

Germany should “create the foundation for withdrawal from Afghanistan” during parliament’s next term, which runs for four years, Der Spiegel cited the position paper as saying. Polls show a majority of voters oppose Germany’s military engagement in Afghanistan.

Hitler teaching safe sex??

A German AIDS awareness group has come under fire for posting an online video that starts off with a young couple having sex in an apartment before revealing the male to be a grinning Adolf Hitler.

Its closing message: "AIDS is a mass murderer."

On Tuesday, a prominent German Jewish group and AIDS prevention advocates demanded the ad be withdrawn.

"It is disgusting and we're asking the producers of the campaign to pull it back," said Joerg Litwinschuh of German AIDS Assistance, an awareness group.

He said the ad, commissioned by Regenbogen, German for rainbow, seemed designed for little more than shock value and was offensive to people who have HIV.

"We denounce this ad. I can say that absolutely," said Volker Mertens, a spokesman for another group, the German AIDS Foundation.

Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, issued a statement calling the ad "a defamation and mockery" of Holocaust victims.

On Monday, Regenbogen deputy head Heiko Schoessling said the ad would run on German TV and in movie theaters. He said the "mass murder" campaign would also include radio spots, music videos, print ads and posters featuring former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and former Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

The next day, as criticism mounted, Regenbogen spokesman Jan Schwertner said plans for the video and the broader campaign were not final. Talks with TV stations and theaters are continuing, he said, but would not disclose when and where the ads would appear.

Until recently, Germans resisted taking creative liberties with Hitler as they reckoned with the horrors of the Nazi past. But as the World War II generation dwindles, that resistance is fading.

Two years ago, when a Swiss Jewish director portrayed Hitler as a comical dolt in "Mein Fuehrer: The Truly Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler," many reviewers dismissed the movie as bad cinema but didn't recoil at the treatment of the Fuehrer as comedy. This spring, a German-language version of the Broadway hit musical "The Producers" — replete with swastikas and goose-stepping storm troopers — had a moderately successful run in Berlin.

Germany voices opposition to Google Books

First, three major U.S.-based companies railed against the Google Books settlement. Now an entire country says nein! The German government filed a complaint in U.S. courts yesterday warning lawmakers that the Google Books deal could have an international impact on copyright law, privacy, and the rights of German authors.

In 2005, Google enmeshed itself in a bad scene when it scanned millions of out-of-print works without author permission. The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers balked, Google coughed up $125 million, and here we are.

Though the Google settlement only applies in the U.S., Germany contends that its precedent will affect other countries.

"Once the database is posted, Internet users even in Germany will have access to the Google Books Search by using a freely accessible U.S. proxy server," said Theodore C. Max, the German government's lawyer. "In other words, even if the digital book database is entirely localized within the United States, it will still be available for search requests from Germany."

Now that Germany has paved the way, other countries may take a similar view.