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“He who does not speak foreign languages
knows nothing about his own.“

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Daily Beast (August 22, 2025): Dems Ban These Words to Stop Sounding Like ‘Crazy People’

“The Tower of Babel” 1563 / Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Here’s a rough breakdown of the top languages on the web:

English: 55.4% – Russian: 6.6% – Japanese: 5.4% – Spanish: 5.2% – Chinese: 4.6%

One of the most contentious aspects of best practice discovery and promulgation in any domain, and no less so in educational settlements, is an agreed-upon vocabulary and shared understanding.  As we explain elsewhere in this history, when a counter-party disagrees with you, he simply switches out the vocabulary — i.e. changes definitions or adds or subtracts from the traditional meanings of things.  So we approach this topic several times a year to confirm our bearing on the meaning of things.

We observe National Poetry Month in the United States and Canada every year with an inquiry into changes in the (meaning of) definitions at the foundation of best practice literature; frequently the subject of sporty debate among experts writing codes and standards for the built environment of education communities.

In the United Kingdom, National Poetry Month is celebrated in October, and it is known as “National Poetry Day” which has been observed since 1994. It is an initiative of the Forward Arts Foundation, which aims to encourage people to read, write and perform poetry.

Other countries also have their own poetry celebrations, such as World Poetry Day, which is observed annually on March 21 by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to promote the reading, writing, and teaching of poetry worldwide.

In past years we used a Tamil mnemonic because Tamil is the oldest surviving language and remains the spoken language of 80-odd million people of South Asia.  Alas, use of Tamil confounds our WordPress content management system so in 2024 we began coding this topic in American English

“The language of Europe is translation”

— Umberto Eco

Lingua Franca

Latin Phrases You Should Know. pic.twitter.com/Erq61gVW29

— Learn Latin (@latinedisce) May 5, 2024

Once median household income is adjusted for cost of living, Utah emerges as the wealthiest state in the nation and Mississippi yet again ranks last. Source: https://t.co/AN3JZqtNnF pic.twitter.com/kv8U3LZlvh

— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) January 3, 2025