Foreign Languages Are a National Interest

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | September 9, 2026 | Veronica Bryant

[karpov]

Ever since Benjamin Franklin wielded his fluent French to persuade Parisian elites to support the War of Independence, foreign language knowledge has enabled American diplomats and representatives—not to mention spies—to promote the nation’s interests.

During World War II and throughout the Cold War, colleges provided education in languages deemed essential for national defense. Those programs were a great success. In the 1940s, Harvard, Michigan, and Berkeley founded secret schools in Japanese, often led by Japanese-Americans. Other institutions opened foreign language programs thereafter. In the wake of Sputnik in 1958, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act.

In recent years, however, the federal government is suffering from a shortage of language experts. In 2020, the Council on Foreign Relations reported that 15% of language-designated positions overseas were vacant and 24% filled by officers with insufficient training. As former CIA agent Glenn Corn said to me in an interview in March of this year, “What I saw over time is a lot of the officers didn’t really take it seriously. The government’s paying them to go study a language, and they just don’t put 110% or even 100% into it.…People study a language and they go overseas; they don’t really use it because it’s not comfortable. It’s comfortable to speak with other Americans or speak with people that work in the embassy who speak English.”

Given the decline of language programs in higher education, that shortage isn’t surprising. A March 2026 report from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), Ivory Tower of Babel, traces this deterioration. Today, a fraction of a percent of college students major in any foreign language. Enrollments in language classes fell 59% from 1965 to 2016.

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TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: college; dumbingdown; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; languagestudies

[Verginius Rufus]

Sputnik was in 1957, but I suppose the law wasn’t passed until the next year.

[whitney69]

But when it came down to practical use, isn’t it interesting that the US Military to keep their codes and security in tact used the language of a native American Tribe, the Navajo language, over the airways and curriers. I used to hate doing foreign languages required to graduate college and high school. I haven’t used any of them since then. But I’m prepared for the day when I need French. It’s only been a little over 50 years. It could happen.

wy69

[Leaning Right]

A couple of months ago I was in a pizza shop, waiting for my order. And I struck up a conversation with the shop’s counter man. We had a very pleasant 10-minute conversation.

Now here’s the thing. This guy didn’t speak a word of English. Yet our conversation was entirely in English. He had some kind of app that instantly translated my English into Spanish (his language).

Then he spoke to the app, which instantly translated his Spanish into English for me. There were no grammatical errors. It was perfect.

These apps will only get better and better. So I suspect we will need far fewer foreign language experts in the future.

[AZJeep]

Obviously true!
Even Hillary, the smartest woman on the planet, could not find anybody, who could properly translate “RESET” into Russian!

[central_va]

I speak jive.

[Tacrolimus1mg]

I took Spanish for about 17 years (2nd grade through college). I didn’t use it for a while, but I use Spanish at work constantly. I work in a Chicago-area pharmacy. If I study the medical terminology, I’d be able to hold my own pretty well.

They wanted to send me to Spain on a student exchange back in 2003, but we found out my kidneys were failing that year, so I couldn’t go regardless.

I’m now starting to learn German for funsies. Polish will be next.

[Ezekiel]

But I’m prepared for the day when I need French.

Me too!

That's the language written above all numbers on the keyboard -- just hold the shift key and go all numerology on people.

Phones tend to lose something in the process though. Not as rich.

[KarlInOhio]

I’m now starting to learn German for funsies.

I still remember enough high school German to watch Hogan's Heroes without subtitles. Raus! Raus! Schnell!

Polish will be next.

After only three years you will be able to spell and pronounce Krzyzewski.

[kawhill]

Beide Schreibweisen („Deutsch sprechen“ und „deutsch sprechen“) sind nach dem Amtlichen Regelwerk der deutschen Rechtschreibung korrekt, bedeuten aber leicht.

[dfwgator]

After only three years you will be able to spell and pronounce Krzyzewski.

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Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfKZclMWS1U

[Verginius Rufus]

Remember the show “Barney Miller” and the character with an impossible-to=spell Polish name? He claimed it was spelled just like it was pronounced.

[Verginius Rufus]

Neanderthals are known from fossils and the "h" in Neanderthal is a fossil--modern German spelling changed thal to tal. (Tal is cognate with the English word "dale.")

[x]

English spelling is arbitrary and inconsistent (so is French). A lot of foreign languages are spelled according to rules, but you still have to know the language to spell them. It’s said that Gaelic is like that. The spelling makes no sense to us. It gives us no clues to how to pronounce words, but to native speakers, everything is spelled just like it sounds and sounds just like it’s spelled.

[Chengdu54]

American high schools should be offering courses in Mandarin Chinese. This was on the upswing from 2000 until around 2010. Then paranoia swept in. This trend and its causes was an area of my academic expertise. Mandarin language teaching has been a political football for more than 50 years.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for the ping!