The above -- can you read it? Unless you are one of about 11,000 Americans studying Arabic or a native speaker, you cannot. 11,000. A decent number, no? It seems so if we consider that in 1998 only 5,500 Americans were studying the language. But not so fast.

The 11,000 students of Arabic who can read the title of this article represent less than 1% of all Americans currently enrolled in foreign language courses at university. And this year, of all undergraduate degrees conferred in America only 1% were given in foreign languages.

The breakdown of Americans studying foreign language and Arabic specifically is representative of a much broader issue in American education – the need to align foreign language instruction with the nation’s present and future economic and national security priorities.

In our educational system, the study of foreign languages has never really been a priority and language study, if actually encouraged and required, has been focused on expanding a student’s cultural horizons – the ability to read Albert Camus in French and Immanuel Kant in German.

While I am not out to underestimate the clear cultural value of studying French (the world’s number #11 most widely spoken language) and German (#10), when American high school students still do not have the opportunity to take Advanced Placement (AP) exams in Mandarin (#1) and Arabic (#4) we have a problem.

It is more than twenty years after China began indicating sustained and substantial economic growth. Yet the College Board plans to offer Advanced Placement exams in Mandarin for the first time in 2007, and this is only if teacher ranks can be filled (a big “if”).

Sure, better late than never. But it is also more than four years after September 11, 2001, the day America woke up to the darkest corners of the Muslim world. If we are waiting around for another twenty years for the first AP exams in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Turkish, we might as well keep any significant improvements to intelligence analysis and public diplomacy in these critical regions on the shelf.

In 2004 alone, the FBI’s intake of untranslated surveillance doubled because of a shortage of language analysts, and as illuminated by the 9/11 Commission Report, our intelligence apparatus simply did not have the capability to translate critical materials in the lead up to 9/11.

As of August 2004, the State Department can list only 8 individuals who command the highest levels of Arabic proficiency (“4+” and “5”). This allows State at any one time to staff less than half of the foreign embassies in the Middle East with a fluent Arabic speaker. At level “3” in Arabic proficiency – the ability to handle one-on-one conversational situations – State boasts 225 such employees. This is encouraging news. But as Jennifer Bremer notes (WPost, 10/16/05), “from a public diplomacy standpoint, the key distinction is between a ‘3’ and a ‘4.’” Bremer, a former Foreign Service Officer who achieved level “3” Arabic, explains “no responsible person would ask a ‘3’ to speak before an unfriendly crowd at the local university much less put a ‘3’ in front of a television camera and expect a clear, engaging and cogent discussion of U.S. Middle East policy.”

In other words, there are a total of 8 people at the U.S. Department of State who have the ability to get on the set of Al- Jazeera or stand before a room of young intellectuals in the Middle East and directly explain U.S. foreign policy. All other U.S. – Middle East dialogue risks being lost in translation. I say this just does not cut it.

If former U.S. Senator David Boren, founder of the Boren Fellowships for undergraduate and graduate foreign language study, hit the mark in 1992 when he warned, “Our ignorance of world cultures and world languages represents a threat to our ability to remain a world leader,” his concern rings only more true today.

Foreign language study in America, from kindergarten through the Ph.D., must begin being treated as an essential professional skill, like mathematics, medicine, law and engineering, and less as a cultural legitimacy tag.

The first step towards re-branding foreign language study was taken in 1991 with the passage of the National Security Education Act (also spearheaded by Senator Boren). The Act established the National Security Education Program (NSEP) which, eleven years later, has finally gotten around to implementing the National Flagship Language Initiative (NFLI). The NFLI calls itself the “nation’s first major partnership between federal government and higher education to implement a national system of programs designed to produce advanced competency in languages critical to the nation’s security.”

But does the definition of “advanced competency” mean different things to different people? Sure enough, it does. The NFLI mission explains that it is “producing students with professional proficiency (level 3) in critical foreign languages.” Great. The NFLI is preparing half-marathoners when what we need are foreign language speakers who can go the distance.

And you don’t have to take my word that level “3” language proficiency finishes short of our diplomatic and national security needs: the State Department’s renowned Foreign Service Institute, recognizing the difficultly of learning Arabic, Mandarin, Farsi, Korean and other critical languages, has recently begun a pilot “Beyond 3” program.

What of Capitol Hill? In the 109th Congress, several pieces of legislation have been introduced, addressing some of the issues raised in this article. Most bolster undergraduate and graduate security critical foreign language fellowships and fast-track federal agency hiring of language skilled applicants.

But only one bill, the National Foreign Language Coordination Act of 2005, introduced by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI), gets at the heart of why America continues to fall short of producing a vanguard of critical foreign language specialists, and it only goes so far.

The Act calls for the appointment of a “national foreign language director” to lead a council made up of representatives of the 14 federal agencies in implementing a cohesive national foreign language strategy.

Ideally, this “language czar” would be given the power to coordinate foreign language programs from the kindergarten to graduate school to state and federal employment. In practice, as Michael Erard explains in The New Republic (10/24/05), “the language czar has no real power to enact change. Akaka’s bill gives the czar a budget for p.r. but no oversight over anyone else’s budget…[and the] bill doesn’t specify to whom the czar would report – which leaves no one responsible when goals aren’t met.”

Congress would do better to solidly ground the “national foreign language director” under an appropriate Department, whether it is Education, State or Defense, and give this director the authority to coordinate foreign language programs from early education to higher education to private sector critical foreign language learning incentives to state and federal employee recruitment. Appropriations will also need to be robust, immediate and long-term.

The unfortunate fact is that foreign languages most critical to the continued success of the American economy and integrity of our national security are also the foreign languages deemed by the Department of State most difficult to learn. Thus, the challenge is serious. Ignore it and we ignore an essential leg in a thriving and secure American future.

I think it is fitting that earlier this year the House and Senate passed resolutions declaring 2005 the “Year of Foreign Language Study.” Yet all of the bills discussed above have been referred to Congressional committee and remain untouched. It is time our leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, stop telling us what it is they declare and start showing us what it is they do.

Oh, and the Arabic scripted title of this article, just in case you are still curious, it is: “Can You Read This?”

*The English-Arabic translation website used to obtain the title of this article is: http://translate.sakhr.com/