Seekers reaching the u.s. Border the announcement came hours after President Trump posted a message on Twitter threatening to impose tariffs on Guatemalan imports and cut government aid world news from the b.b.c. . The United States I beg your pardon Syrian state media says Israel has launched a missile attack targeting military positions in the southern province of Dara the Syrian state news agency Sanna and state t.v. Said quote the describers Israeli aggression was directed at Taylor are close to the Golan Heights the United States has imposed visa restrictions on Nigerians who it says have undermined the democratic process in their homeland the u.s. State Department said those affected by the sanctions would include people responsible for violence or corruption during elections or Nigeria last February and March more from my Any Jones It's unclear what criteria the u.s. Has used to determine who will be affected by the visa restrictions the names of those impacted by this announcement have not been made public in a statement the State Department stressed that the sanctions were specific to certain individuals and not directed at the Nigerian people or government this isn't the 1st time the u.s. Has raised concerns during a visit to Nigeria ahead of the last elections in 2015 then Secretary of State John Kerry promised anyone involved in political violence in Nigeria would be denied an American visa but the u.s. Government failed to follow through on its frights. Israel's former prime minister who had barrackers apologize for the killings by the Israeli security forces of a group of his really Arab protesters in October 2000 when he was in office Mr Barak said he took responsibility for the shooting of the 12 Israeli citizens and a Palestinian at the start of the 2nd hour of into fodder for uprising. A rare period of trainers from 1982 sold at auction 447-0000 dollars a new world record for sneakers only about a dozen peers of the Nike moon shoe were ever produced the running shoes were designed by knights co-founder Bill Bowerman b.b.c. News. You're listening to the news room from the b.b.c. World Service with me Chris Spero and a few hours time Britain's new prime minister Boris Johnson will be formally appointed by the Queen there's no doubt that Mr Johnson's style will be very different from that of his predecessor reason may but he inherits the same issues a tiny working majority a bitterly divided party and the unprecedented challenge of taking Britain out of the European Union by the end of October with this assessment of the challenges facing the new prime minister his Our political correspondent Nick Utley what will Boris Johnson be like his prime minister some relish mentoring number 10 some dread it completely but this afternoon around 4 o'clock when he speaks to the country for the 1st time in his new job we will get more of an idea of 14 tends to do with the power he has long coveted and evidently his greatest challenge will be breaks it delivering his promise of leaving the European Union by the end of October without breaking his party but old new prime ministers want to set out an ideological vision and it's expected Mr Johnson will also Leo more of his domestic agenda then he will get to work putting together his cabinet conversations continue on whether Mr Johnson's leadership rival Jeremy Hunt will keep his job as foreign secretary but before all that to resume able to take part in her final prime minister's questions in the Commons she will also deliver a farewell statement from Downing Street before going to Buckingham Palace to formally resign she leaves her successor one of the most daunting in trees in modern politics the challenges of delivering breaks it uniting a fractured party and healing a divided country Nick Atlee the Us Department of Justice has launched an investigation into leading online technology firms to examine if there unfairly restricting competition the investigation was sparked by what the d.o.j. Described as widespread concerns about search social media. And some retail services online at the same time the European Union is also looking into the activities of tech giants on North America technology correspondent Dave Lee told me who this u.s. Investigation might be targeting the department justice never actually named any company specifically but when you look at the language of what they're looking into such as domination over search social media retail services and so forth it's kind of easy to see who they might be referring to so the Amazon's Facebook Google Apple of the world and one of their worried about specifically what are they concerned about well the concern here is that these companies have become so big and so powerful so rich that it's becoming very very difficult to compete with them so they want to know where the companies like Google are using their dominance over the search engine industry to favor their own products is one concern they're looking at companies like Amazon for perhaps using its marketplace to favor its products and then you have companies like Facebook who have long been accused of seeing competitors that may challenge their dominance in social media and either buying them or simply copying some of their ideas and that's what this probe is going to look into and I think what's going to make these companies particularly nervous is that there isn't any specific allegation that they're looking at directly so this is a broader look at how the companies have become so powerful and a broad look at what they perhaps do to remain in that position of power such a general review as well as you say so what are they hoping for what's the end goal here sanctions on the companies if they find anything very good question in there are there are things they could do depend on the result of the investigation that could be penalties that could be kind of restrictions on what firms can do people often look back to the battles that marker soft had to do with the u.s. Government towards the end of the ninety's in the early 2000 and we do have a bit of a sense of the feeling of the Department of Justice based on. Things that the u.s. Attorney General William bar has told your makers back in a hearing in January he said I don't think big is necessary bad but I think a lot of people wonder how such huge behemoths that now exist in Silicon Valley have taken shape under the nose of and to trust in forces and he says he wants to find out more about that dynamic so just observing how these companies operate and the markets they're in is the 1st task here because he's a business is unlike anything the u.s. Has really seen before and so they're wondering how they became so powerful but also what can be done to curb that para future potentially and Staveley with his analysis now staying in America after around 6 months the United States finally has a new defense secretary after the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of Donald Trump's nominee Marc esper it is an honor of a lifetime to be appointed secretary of defense and to lead the greatest military in history and I will do so with that same energy and commitment to duty honor and country that I have for nearly 4 decades since my early days at West Point. Mr President it is a privilege for me and for my family to be here with you today thank you for your leadership and for your commitment to a strong national defense and to all of our service members our military has made tremendous gains in recent years thanks to your leadership and we stand ready today to take on any challenge the former Army secretary was backed by 90 senators with only 8 voting against him with a post has been vacant since the previous Defense Secretary James Mattis stepped down over policy differences with President Trump our correspondent in Washington Gary O'Donoghue small he has a military background he served in the 1st Gulf War and he was part of what the Americans are very proud of which is 101st Airborne Division which is a pretty famous part of the Army after that he became a lot for one of the defense the big defense manufacturers in this country Raytheon and that attracted some criticism during his confirmation process from from some Democrats but as you say in the end it was an overwhelming vote in the Senate and I think that's indicative if you like of a concern across the parties that the Pentagon's rather been rather rudderless in recent months you know that bipartisan support in the Senate sounds very significant especially after that 6 month wait as well how much is it a case of actually just wanting somebody in the job and actually is it against the fact that they might just support him as an individual. Well he does have pedigree in that sense and I think the fact that they've got someone with a military background is important to both sets of politicians both parties and of course you know he will know the landscape pretty well what will be interesting I think is the extent to which he can sort of reinserted the Pentagon into the whole national security framework because while there's been this sort of vacuum at the top of the Pentagon it's not just the you know the defense secretary the debt there's no confirmed deputy there still struggling to find someone to be deputy chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of work as well while that's all been happening people like Mike Pompei or the secretary of state and the national security adviser John Bolton they've been really to running policy in that sense of the Pentagon wants to try and get that seat back at the top table and have its voice heard properly Gary O'Donoghue reporting from Washington next El Salvador has some of the strictest abortion laws in the world not only is there a total ban but its laws see women and girls routinely imprisoned after injuring stillbirths and miscarriages last week a 21 year old woman who supporters say she had a stillbirth face the start of a retrial on charges of killing her baby she has to prove that she didn't in juice and abortion since 1908 terminations have been banned in all circumstances including rape incest and a threat to the life of the mother women can be sentenced to a maximum of 50 years in jail from the capital San Salvador all the Guerin sent us this special report. We've come to a bungalow in San Salvador and this is a home for women who have been released from prison I'm in the back garden with théodore Vasquez who's tarty 5 théodore spent almost 11 years in prison she's one of many women here who have been convicted under the country's anti abortion legislation when théodore was sent to prison she was already a mother of a 3 year old son she missed his entire childhood théodore a can you tell me what happened. In the mirror and see it there yes I am but I said it was the July of 2007 I was heavily pregnant I was working in the Contin of a school I started to experience intense pain I was alone I call 911 but no one turned up I made the room 5 or 7 calls but now body came to help my baby had to be born when I was unfortunately I passed how does soon as I feel something fall out of my body when I would regain consciousness I was surrounded by police officers and they were asking me why you had killed my baby had no idea why they were accusing me of place that don't get better care I am at them where they are. When Theodora was released last year her sentence was commuted she says she was jailed for a crime she did not commit some women and girls in El Salvador do seek terminations which have to be performed in secrecy. Well there is a network of doctors who carry out abortions here in spite of the risks both for the women and for themselves the doctors could lose their medical licenses they could be jailed for up to 8 years. We've come to the outskirts of the city now to meet one of these doctors he's agreed to speak to us but he doesn't want us to use his name he says he's doing this because there are so many women who come to him in desperate need of help the doctor told us that about a 3rd of his patients have miscarried but are afraid to go to hospital in case stuff call the police his words are being spoken by an actor there is so much sexual violence here it affects almost 60 percent of my patients many are abused by gang members and I see minors raped by a brother and uncle a father I am frustrated aside by Doron that I know Dr that the victims are being punished by the law it's poor women who suffer most under the abortion ban according to human rights groups because they don't have access to education health care or legal help 16 women remain behind bars to Dora is fighting hard to free them but like many campaigners here she's not expecting any quick reform of the law not only that well in reality I don't see anything changing soon if our eyes cannot see the change but the generation coming behind us sees it then is worth while to see. Aula Guerin with that special report more on this story as we get it b.b.c. U.k. Slash news next nearly 9 tons of elephant ivory and 12 tons of pangolin scales have been intercepted in Singapore officials say the 3 shipping containers labeled as timber were on routes to Vietnam from the Democratic Republic of Congo pulled on our seas chief wildlife advisor for the environmental group w w f u k obviously if we're seeing tons of ivory tons of pangolin skills being shipped across the globe that indicates that there is organized criminal networks active at the same turn in we do have to give credit to Singapore and authorities that intercepted this shipment and this is not the 1st plan has happened in Singapore the last 12 to 18 months we've seen them seize somewhere in the region of 40 tons of pangolins skills So whilst there is a testament to their efforts to target traffickers it does indicate that this is an only going pressure that these species are facing primarily penguin skills are used in Chinese traditional medicine they're also occasionally used in ornaments and things like that primarily for traditional use although this shipment was sourced from our team from the d.r. See it's quite possible that the ivory contained within it that the penguins that were obviously came from other parts of Africa and we've seen evidence of trafficking networks that cover basically much of west in Central Africa they may aside from the d r c that many assets in Nigeria but also the elephants or the Penguins are are killed in taking see the wild elsewhere pulled on our us from w w f u k You're listening to the news room from the b.b.c. World Service with me Chris sparrow and now it's coming up to $420.00 g.m.t. . More now on our main story and with his unruly blonde hair and a gift for memorable phrases Boris Johnson is the only politician in Britain to be known by many by just his 1st name Boris our political correspondent Rob Watson reports on the former newspaper journalist mayor of London leader of the brakes it campaign and foreign secretary who's now become the U.K.'s new prime minister. That is ready to get this country off the hamster wheel of doom and that is to get bricks it done by October the 31st that was Boris Johnson's pitch to conservatives joining the just concluded leadership contest but who is the man who wants everyone to somehow start cheering up and believing in Bracks it in many ways he's deeply conventional He was educated at Britain's most exclusive private school Eton and at Oxford University in other ways he will surely be the most controversial occupants of Downing Street in living memory given what his many critics and even some supporters would concede as his history of untruthfulness and untrustworthiness as a journalist and a politician Sania Purnell is author of a highly critical biography of Mr Johnson just Bar us a tale of Blonde Ambition the concerns about birth doesn't go away that until the 1990 s. When he was reporting on the e.u. The day had never that's when I was working with him so concerned about that the lack of this and some of the stories he wrote about you since then of course he's been mayor of London he rise to so great chaos in city hall and then of course he went on to become 1st secretary thought to be one of the worst for a sexy for many years don't leave on June the 23rd we're going to take back control of 350000000 pounds a week but Mr Johnson is undoubtedly a very persuasive and sometimes charismatic politician who was instrumental in leading the campaign to leave the e.u. In 2016. Guitar Harry has known Boris Johnson since student days in Oxford and works for him when he was matter of London if Boris was to govern the u.k. As he ran. As a liberal one nation conservative president. Open to all communities coupled with this irrepressible belief that the u.k. Is the best country on Earth then he could be a very successful prime minister but there's an effect certainly as prime minister Mr Johnson won't have it easy not least because of all the questions likely to persist about his character and past controversial comments such as likening Muslim women wearing the niqab to letterboxes and bank robbers Mr Johnson tends to breezily dismiss questions about his past assurances and writings but undoubtedly his time in Number 10 promises to be lively but what kind of Prime Minister will he be can he save Bracks or does he promises or will it all end in disaster a question for George Parker the political editor of The Financial Times and he's going to run into exactly the same problems that reason may run into in Brussels in terms of trying to renegotiate the deal I think the House of Commons will continue to block an election the parliamentary recruiting hasn't changed and he will become prime minister possibly the most forbidding domestic circumstances of any prime minister in recent history George Packer there from the Financial Times ending that report by Rob Watson. Next the Cuban government has rejected the findings of a study which was said to have found brain abnormalities in scans of 40 u.s. Diplomats who worked in Cuba several diplomats at the embassy in Havana complained of unexplained symptoms including dizziness and hearing loss and the trumpet ministration suggested this was the result of an attack perhaps involving some kind of sonic equipment the issue was a key reason for the almost complete shutdown of the u.s. Embassy in Havana over the past 2 years as u.s. Staff was sent home Cuba has always denied any involvement from Havana will grant reports the findings published in The Journal of American medicine have only added to the mystery in the study scientists at the University of Pennsylvania took brain scans for 40 diplomats working in the u.s. Embassy in Havana at the time of the alleged sonic attacks in essence they claim to have found brain abnormalities when comparing them to a control group of healthy volunteers specifically the authors said the diplomat showed less white matter which could affect the brain's ability to send messages as well as other changes affecting order tree and spatial functions. The paper so frustrated the Cuban scientists that have been working on the supposed to Nick attacks that they called a rare an impromptu press conference to refute the lead neuroscientist Professor Mitchell Valdez saucer question the study's methodology and called the results inconclusive just in the brain damage is outburst was very diverse and if you build up corresponds to a coherent explanation the result will have added several coherence to break in the interval he also argued that the University of Pennsylvania study was based on fundamentally flawed science the differences between diplomats and control if it exists couldn't go to the way the control flow was. Any preexisting this is it one of the bullets that would be in the group of control or vice versa Crippen of a difference in the human now 2 years after the u.s. Diplomats left the island this issue still matters to the Cuban government the u.s. State Department issued travel warnings about Cuba following the problem which is affected tourism and continues to refer to the incidents as attacks the Cuban foreign ministry called on national security adviser John Bolton to stop using such language saying that Washington was well aware that all diplomats tourists and visitors were safe from Tube and soil. For its part the United States says that its staff were harmed while in Cuba and blames the Cuban authorities for failing to prevent the incidents especially after they were 1st alerted to them will cry out and now fear and has some other stories from our news desk the u.s. Senate has voted to extend the compensation fund for victims of the September the 11th attacks the fund was due to stop taking new claims in 2020 and was on the verge of running note it covers the medical costs of the 1st responders volunteers and survivors who were injured in the attacks the Senate passed a bill to continue compensation P.O.'s until 2090 it's estimated around $10000000000.00 will be paid out in the next decade the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said his country will not be subdued by what he described as attacks from the United State His comments come after a major power cut which began on Monday afternoon and left most of the country without electricity overnight the government said the blackout had been caused by an electromagnetic attack carried out by the us and the Venezuelan opposition power has now been restored in the capital Caracas and most of the country the opposition leader one guy do blamed government corruption and incompetence for the power cut. The organizers of the talk you Olympics are marking a year until the start of the event by unveiling the medals to be awarded to the winners a special ceremony is taking place to reveal the design construction of the games is on show jewel according to the organizers who are promising the most innovative Olympics ever they say there's been unprecedented demand for ticket however concern has been raised the soaring summer temperatures could risk a c. 50 of athletes and spectators Thank you Hannah now a new star will be appearing next month at one of Britain's most prestigious classical music venues the Klein born opera is staging a production of Handel's Rinaldo but has had to search for a replacement after losing its leading lady not many people would have expected a 28 year old male break dancer from Poland to step in but that's exactly what happens when you Orleans ski takes to the stage our correspondent Rebecca Jones ripples. He's a man of many talents a breakdown says yes you said found fame on social media and his videos have been viewed millions of times he's also worked as a model but it's his voice which will be the focus when he makes his debut with going born. 6 in the female singer who was originally cast as renowned unexpectedly withdrew. When school was asked to step up from a minor role to take the lead the parts can either be performed by a female lets a soprano or a male countertenor and Wilensky was in natural fit but he won't be great don't sing in the opera. Climbable has handstands in spinning upside down and not recommended on stage. Definitely spoils for sidewalks break dancing and opera combined wouldn't you Rebecca Jones there with that report what a great story and you've been listening to the news room from the b.b.c. World Service with me Chris sparrow Thanks for tuning in and thanks the team as well for their great work. Distribution of the b.b.c. World Service in the u.s. Is made possible by American Public Media producer and distributor of award winning public radio content a.p.m. American Public Media with support from c 3 dot They are addressing the world's most challenging problems at the convergence of artificial intelligence io t. And elastic cloud computing learn more at c 3 dot a I. There was a 2000 code I'm Sam Sanders reporter with n.p.r. It was the stand Bronstein of color I love that it was my father's truck so it has an image of value to me but it got very right by the and the shocks were just horrible so it felt like a horse and buggy every right to the end of its life imagine that truck becoming my favorite go to k. Or c c Dato or g for details. Coming up after the news in the final program in our series on the super linguists is there such a thing as a Mormon lingo society one reason most of us here in Britain aren't super linguists is that we don't need to be much of the world speaks English but we might be missing out on earning a raise in pay or even a date to find out more with me Simon Calder on the super linguists mainly in English after the news b.b.c. News if you know MacDonald Boris Johnson will become the British prime minister today as the country faces its biggest political crisis in decades Mr Johnson has promised that Britain will leave the European Union before November but his party has a tiny majority in parliament and many M.P.'s are determined to prevent a new deal Breck's it. The u.s. Justice Department has to conduct a review and whether major technology firms are stifling innovation and market competition the companies to be investigated have not been named but are thought to include big players such as Google Amazon and Facebook. Syrian state media see Israel has launched a small missile attack targeting military positions in the southern province of Dera close to the Golan Heights they said there were no casualties analysts say the area is thought to contain militias backed by Iran China's Defense Ministry has accused the United States of undermining global strategic stability by expanding defense spending and selling arms to Taiwan in a policy paper the ministry said issues concerning Taiwan were becoming more acute and what it called prove independence separatist forces there with a grievous threat to peace in the Taiwan street the Defense Ministry also reaffirmed that its nuclear weapons were only for self-defense the authorities in Singapore of seize their biggest ever hole of elephant ivory and Pangle and scales which were being smuggled to Vietnam from Africa Singapore acted following a tip off from China. And the organizers of the talk you Olympics are marking a year until the start of the event by un veiling the medals to be awarded construction for the games is on Chad Duell according to the organizers who are promising the most innovative Olympics ever however concerns have been raised about the estimated $12000000000.00 cost of the Olympics or soaring summer temperatures in Tokyo could risk the safety of athlete b.b.c. News. Yes us the b.b.c. Is then a school Chanda the basic they were hired b.b.c. Are these Lucia it yes as those multilingual messages reveal your listening to the b.b.c. I'm Simon Calder welcoming you to the final program in our series here on the b.b.c. World Service about people who speak many languages the super linguists. Today and looking at the subject from the point of view of monolingual societies countries where local born people predominantly speak only one language I'm from England lots of people think of the United Kingdom and in particular of England as a monolingual society the same applies to some of the world's most populous nations including Russia Brazil and Japan but how accurate is that picture. There are no monolingual countries in the world the multilingualism might be out of view and might be hidden but we no longer have monolingual societies ya Mark De Waal a professor of applied linguistics and multilingualism at the University of London's Birkbeck College even countries which are emphatically at the monolingual end of the language spectrum have a babel of other tongues some homegrown others imported Russia has only one official language but besides Russian this vast nation which stretches from the Pacific to the Baltic has 27 regional Co official languages ranging from Czech Gen in the Caucasus to could see in the far northern region of Sakha. Or take South America's biggest nation Brazil where 99 percent of the population speak Portuguese the country's only official language but there are also $180.00 indigenous languages and the mother tongues of those descended from German and Japanese immigrants and talking of Japanese the probably more morning was in Japan than in other countries but still there are different varieties of Japanese and still there there are groups of immigrants that use other languages and Korean It's quite widely used etc and even minority languages like this one down and. Down I am sure. That an old indigenous language of Japan called i.e. New now only spoken by a few i.e. New people in the far north of the country. So why do some of us think of ourselves as living in a monolingual society the u.k. Is a good place to start many of us Brits are convinced when monolingual schools generally teach Spanish or French I happened to be taught Russian but the evidence I see both anecdotal and official suggests few of us could actually hold a complex conversation in the language we learned in school or even a basic conversation in a recent pan-European study peoples in England Lanka will be behind the continental average the standard joke among British tourists is you need only 2 phrases when travelling to beers please and the essential adjunct my friend is paying apart from that we just get by in English Americans don't learn a language they don't see the need but Ernestine Lyons a super linguist who speaks several languages including Russian Chinese Arabic and Hindi she didn't grow up in some jet setting multi-lingual household though but in a deprived predominantly African-American part of Detroit in Michigan in the America maybe west when we travel we don't leave the country we go to Florida we go to California there are tons of people I know have never left the country and are satisfied with that and while a language when everybody speaks English is something that you hear frequently yet her childhood was not strictly monolingual I grew up speaking African-American vernacular English or are they and it's something that I grew up speaking in a household play when I went to public schools in the suburbs where I was the only black student I realized that I had to shift to standard English which is something that you know you always know and you grow up with but you in the house hold you speak that variant that version of English and you kind of switch into it even if you're in a business meeting or you. At the university and you see somebody who is like you and then you can switch to that and then you go back to that mainstream language the one that is going to get everyone to see you as a person to be taken seriously and a person who has something to say somebody who is important what Ernestine describes is code switching between 2 versions of English that some might say are 2 dialects it's not so different from speaking 2 languages and you really monolingual if you speak 2 quite different things that you have to actively keep separate afaik he has a distinct history having evolved with a specific community that of those with African heritage most dialects though perhaps less to do with the people's history and simply to do with geography. Zouma wines to future pay for at the get I'm sure favors are always fit in the cards. Object given you might think but in fact this is most of Frankish a dialect spoken around the Moselle Valley in the far west of Germany by people like Kirsten cable She now lives in the u.k. And I asked her about most or Frankish the closest official language that we have to most of Frankish is Luxemburg and it's quite closely related to middle German It sounds rather different to auto each the standard German dialect that we all learn but it's one of $2526.00 German dialects so there's lots and lots and lots of German dialects that are actually not intelligible necessarily to each other if somebody from Bavaria starts going for dialect I'm going to have problems somebody from Saxony starts going full direct I'm going to have a problem so whether Frank is what we speak where I'm from and where I'm. From his very rural so it is very different you were growing up in a bilingual community then with most of Frankish and walked away shy German How did that feel I recently asked my parents why did you stop speaking most of us to me why did you stop speaking dialect to me when they do speak dialect to each other to my grandparents I understand the dialect but now when I go home and I try to speak the dialect to them I feel a little self-conscious I feel like I'm not doing it right they kind of look at me funny I don't really belong in the same language space when I asked my dad said Well at the time they said that's what you do when you send your kid to school you switch them to water and my parents speak differently to me then I speak to my brother who lives at home in is a winemaker has taken on the family business so it's much more involved in that community to speak more touch to me so even though you kind of grew up bilingual I wish the society or the world around me had given us the message that our dialect is really worthwhile I had no idea until I was 28 or something like that that Luxembourg just sort of accepted respected language is actually really similar to what I speak at home whereas you grow up thinking well that's the peasant speaking and that's that's the real speak where do you draw the line between a dialect and a language much academic Inc has been spilt over trying to define that boundary the classic answer to that question is that the language has a navy behind it so basically it's arbitrary choice so are Swedish Norwegian and Danish individual languages because they have navies that is they spoken in independent countries or should they actually be considered dialects as they're so similar to each other what about Russian Bellary. Seon in that case Turkish and Azeri politics and language are often tangled in the days when Yugoslavia was a single political entity Serbians could converse with Croatians in Serbo-Croat those Serbians used to Cyrillic alphabet while Croats used Roman script today these nations insist that they each have a unique national language like the former Yugoslavia the u.k. Is made up of several countries England Wales Scotland and Northern Ireland and subject to some occasionally tricky accents a woman from Kent in the southeast corner of England could converse happily with a man from the far north of Scotland English that lingua franca the language spoken by everybody is dominant but Kerstin says that other languages once assumed to be dying out are enjoying a resurgence Britain has been a raid of languages I think England likes to think of itself as Britain and that's not quite right and I think once you start thinking of Britain as the the variety that it actually is it's much much easier to see the other languages that are there and currently does actually revival happening of languages like Cornish and Manx this various language activity going on in the u.k. Many countries have indigenous minority languages and what intrigues me is that plenty have survived despite the might of the dominant majority language. Said it was the. Right. Thing that is if I get able to get it back over the record the biggest indigenous minority language in the u.k. Is Welsh spoken in the principality of Wales which extends from Cardiff in the south east to Anglesey in the far north west of the country's population of 3000000 half a 1000000 can speak read and write one. Welsh and a thorough half a 1000000 have some knowledge of the language so that these 2 out of 3 people in Wales speaking no Welsh at all but there are adult learners and Kerstin although she hells from Germany is one of them it's a really enjoyable language I love learning world indeed of the 10 languages she studied Kristin says Welsh is the most rewarding it's something that as a foreigner in the u.k. Adds to your experience of being in the u.k. In a really unique way and it's just such a pleasure to experience extra levels of Britain it feels like you know when you're playing a video game and you're accessing sort of a hidden level feels a bit like that do you plan holidays in Wales Yes I do it's quite disappointing last time because we went to the Brecon Beacons and I couldn't find any work because I could make appointments with people I knew from online and sort of say hey will meet up and book chat Bert in terms of going to the shop saying boy dad Good morning it was harder. At the language show in London interest in Welsh is growing with a very well attended taster session that should please the government in the national capital Cardiff where they have a target of doubling the number of speakers to a 1000000 by 2050 so with minority languages apparently thriving does it matter if some British people insist with mono lingual. In a previous edition of the super linguists here on the b.b.c. World Service we heard that people's can be taught well by among others Becky store the head of languages McKayla school a radical educational establishment in Wimberley north west London I've spent a lot of time in Europe and the difference in the expectation that even if your job doesn't involve it even if you haven't studied at university you will speak more than one language is widespread across the continent in a way that it simply isn't in Britain and is that partly because English is arguably the universal language and therefore British people well it's either a blessing or a curse the fact that they don't really have to learn another language I think so I think there is a sense that they don't really have to and even for those people who have the will to speak and wish to speak you're brought when you go to France Germany Belgium Scandinavia Spain especially my generation English is everywhere you can skate English and everyone also wants to speak to you in English and when their English is so much better than your attempts at their language it can be very difficult to hold the line. And I know I'm going to keep speaking to you in French or whatever language it is I think it is difficult thing for people to escape English actually so I sense that there's a couple of things here that you're saying the 1st one is that it has obstacles to the British learning other languages because everybody else is so keen to learn English but it's also a question of actually cheated what you mean by that I think it goes quite deep into the culture I've just encountered many many English people some educated a very high standard who don't really see the point and who are not motivated intrinsically to learn another language it's very different from the last year I've seen abroad where to say what's the point in learning another language is an absurd question. One super linguist who works as cabin crew on an intercontinental airline characterizes the language that is coming to dominate the world as Bangkok airport English yet because of the many different nationalities who congregate in cities such as London it's possible to reverse the process to learn from the neighbors if you like super linguist Alex Rawlings speaks 15 languages he now lives in Barcelona but I went to meet him when he returned to his old neighborhood in north London where he was inspired to learn Turkish because of the number of Turkish opened shops. Alex Rowlings if I can just place where we are we're on a busy main road in the north of London in Stoke Newington and just looking around I can see a Vietnamese street food restaurant a Chinese takeaway and Italian delicatessen and we're here outside the AK Denny's supermarket. Yeah this really is the heart of multicultural Britain for me I mean any single one of these shops you could just walk through the door and find people from different countries and speaking different languages and just feel like you're in different worlds. You need anything from the supermarket not particularly but I would like to practice my Turkish so I will create a meet. Let's go in and see what happens. So Alex you've chosen a well known soft drink now what happens we buy the drink for even less in the us as. In. Season tickets in is to get it down. To and from there oh obl very stunned as it were because it's been in vehicle name you know you know what has just been going on between the 2 of you which is have a little chat there just in tell me that he's techies were from Bulgaria and I said my grandmother was from Greece so we said you know Greece Turkey Bulgaria we're all neighbors so let's put up here in London before we would have to. Go and. While there may be no such thing as a modern lingual country there are people who can't see the point of learning foreign languages or think it's not for them perhaps people import rural areas or deprived in a city neighborhoods but even here you can find super linguists people like Ernestine Lyons who we heard earlier Detroit born and bred she can happen East speak to the locals in China Russia the Arab world and India she founded a social and. Broich Lynn global to encourage in a city high school students to follow in her linguistic path it gives them a voice because a language really does give you a voice it gives you this sense of I can communicate clearly and I am a value I am a person of the hour you and I am intelligent and I think that's something that there's a disconnect when it comes to you know African-American kids you know from the lower socioeconomic backgrounds. They don't necessarily see the value in themselves because you know if you turn on the news there's always this this narrative that you know black people are criminal they're you know less educated and there's just this narrative and we sort of internalize a narrative and think like Ok whoa where is my value life in society and then it becomes this self-perpetuating myth that well I'm not going to amount to anything so I might as well not even try and you don't see the possibilities and so I think the biggest thing that I want Going Global to do and what I have been doing is giving them the confidence to know that you can and giving them the tools to make a roadmap so that you can but people from tough grounds typically have other priorities in the daily lives than learning foreign languages why should they bother when you're coming from that kind of a background all you really want is love All you want to connection you want to be able to feel valued and I think that when you give that you get it back and to me a language is the most breathtaking way to have that experience and then that can never be taken away from you having that experience it gives me confidence because I was always the shy very reserved kid you know when I was younger I barely spoke to people and you know I'd left the country I came back I started learning languages and you know then I was just like Ok if I can x. For directions in the streets of St Petersburg at like 1 am. Then why not x. You know this person out on a date or why not x. Your. Boss for a raise or you know it is just this confidence that you have one life so you might as well live it and make connections on the way. Home let you all of you talk it's not just polyglots like honesty that her language is through dedication and hard work you give the lie to the idea that some societies are more known lingual There are of course lots of people who grow up emote eeling go home. Like. This Cantonese speaking 3 year old girl Lena is the daughter of a British man living in London super linguist Ali Richards and his wife Carly our main language home language is English My wife grew up in the u.k. This by being from from Hong Kong she grew up in the u.k. So we've always spoken in English now me with my daughter we speak English and my wife and my daughter they speak Cantonese you gone was your child is young. How does it feel to be living as a multi-lingual family in an apparently monolingual society I've heard tragically a number of foreigners here in London tell me that they don't feel comfortable walking down the street speaking their mother tongue or even speaking to that child in the 2nd language at the moment because of the obvious political climate I think personally though I wear it as a badge of honor and we speak various languages unashamedly and I mean I know we live in difficult times but for me personally the language is in my life ah an overwhelmingly positive thing and thus That's all I have to say about it. He grew up in a French speaking home in the Flemish part of Bill. Jim is now a professor at the University of London and he shares the joy of languages there are no monolingual countries in the world we do have societies where monolingual ideologies are dominant language isn't identity marker so it means that governments typically won't immigrants to adopt the language of the country because it would show that they have become citizens of that country so it means that politicians or suspicious of other languages being used in the country because they assume that speaking another language might somehow. Compromise the integration of the non-majority language user into society for lack of integration you could read lack of respect or loyalty to those in power that's why empires through history of like to make sure that those they rule also speak their language Napoleon is a good example he imposed French in all the territories that France occupied at the point with the aim of making all these people French and so they would be educated in French they would be taught French political and philosophical values and no other language was tolerated so it became the language of power it would become the language of tribunals it would be the language for social promotion and very quickly you can impose new languages but Professor de Valley argues that it's wrong to think that other languages are threats you can be a Punjabi English speaker and be a perfectly loyal British citizen the fact that you have that Punjabi doesn't make . You less of a Brit and you will probably still love with British jokes and you will be totally into British culture yet you have that other language but it is not a problem it is in fact richness it is from the government's point of view undeveloped social capital that if we were to applaud and encourage minority groups to learn to read and write their languages in the original scripts it would make them feel good about their roots and they would realize that you can in fact belong in different cultures similar tenuously and that it doesn't mean that you are not integrated in the society in which you live what is the attitude in your experience in monolingual countries to the languages spoken by immigrants to the country it depends where they are from so if they are American immigrants and they are wealthy then I don't think anyone would object to the American English if they come from a poor country and the language does not have much social prestige then the attitudes would be very different so everything depends really on the prestige of the language of the immigrant English would be top of that league and I think it is so much top of the league that it becomes a problem for other languages that are kind of pushed out because the argument is you know if we speak a national language then why would we have to learn any other language but English there is a kind of perverse effect there that the success of English as a lingua franca might kind of push other languages to the side. You've been listening in English to the super linguists with me Simon Calder the program and indeed this whole series was produced by our language goriest for b.b.c. World Service Radio in partnership with the Open University. Are you looking to improve your language skills put your linguistic knowledge to the test and discover more about its by heading to b.b.c. World Service dot com forward slash documentaries and follow the links to the open universe you're listening to the b.b.c. World news on to Southern Colorado n.p.r. Station broadcast sun 91.5 f.m. From our studios in Colorado Springs Colorado you can also hear cares you see in the following communities 88.5 f.m. In West Cliff and Gardner 89 point one f.m. In La Hunter 89.9 f.m. In Lyman 90 point one f.m. In Manitou Springs 91.7 f.m. In Trinidad and Raton New Mexico 94 point one f.m. In Walsenburg and 95.5 f.m. In Lake George and Hertz all 95.7 f.m. In the universe to end Villa Grove and 105.7 f.m. In Canyon City for questions or comments please call 719-473-4801 during regular business hours you can always become a member of k. Or c.c. By going to. And making your financial contributions safely on line. At 6 o'clock Hello and welcome to News Day on the b.b.c. World Service with me in our studios in London. Lawrence outside parliament in central London a very warm welcome for a new prime minister is standing by here in the u.k. The challenges are the same is the new man up to it who is Boris Johnson he is a brigadier he's offended more people than he's had hoped but maybe he's amused even more what can we expect apart from the unexpected in the us the former f.b.i. Director Robert Mueller faces questions from 2 congressional committees about his report on the Donald Trump campaign and Russia what good he say that he hasn't already said in his initial findings also on the u.s. The government investigates whether tech giants have too much power more and that will bend in the business news sports Also coming your way this half hour as our.