Linguists Encouraged

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30763, 29 May 1965, Page 15

Linguists Encouraged

(N Z Press Assn. — Copyright)

CANBERRA. May 28. Not one officer in Australia’s External Affairs service can fluently read or speak Polish, according to official Government figures.

But three can speak Swahili, two Arabic, and one Hausa (an African dialect). Twenty-three officers are proficient in Indonesian-Malay,

24 in Russian and 11 in Chin-

ese. The Minister for External Affairs, Mr Paul Hasluck, said today the department was encouraging its officers and their wives to learn foreign languages. Training ranged from fulltime courses lasting for as long as three years—for Chinese and Japanese—to parttime tuition for an hour or two a week, he said. “This year, officers will undergo full-time courses in Vietnamese, Thai, Spanish, French, Russian, Indonesian, Chinese and Japanese,” Mr Hasluck said.

“At the present time 100 officers and wives are undertaking part-time study in the main foreign languages of the world.” Direct incentives include the payment of proficiency allowances for officers qualifying at standards prescribed by the Public Service Board, and the provision of time off with pay for study. Other languages which External Affairs officers could either speak or read fluently included Spanish (22), Portuguese (7), Japanese (15), Swedish (2) and Afrikaans (2).