More than 46,000 Utah students are learning to hablar espanol, but soon, they might be switching over to Farsi (Persian), Arabic, Hindi, Russian and Korean.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Patti Harrington on Wednesday pitched offering those world languages in schools. The idea, brought to Capitol Hill's schools budget subcommittee, is to introduce Utah students to "critical need" languages, as defined by President Bush's National Security Initiative, which also stands to improve Utah's business competitiveness.

State education officials reported other states are tapping more than $100 million in federal funding for such language initiatives.

Traditional languages such as Spanish, French, German and, more recently, Japanese, would continue to be taught too.

"I'm excited about this," said Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper and subcommittee co-chairman. "My hope is as we give incentives to schools ... we will also be able to make ... connections with other countries."

The proposal remains formative. It's uncertain how much it would cost; associate superintendent Patrick Ogden surmised it could be in the $1 million neighborhood.

Associate superintendent Myron Cottam said it might be created to work like the Mandarin Chinese program does, bringing people from native-speaking nations to Utah to teach the language.

That program is working well, said Stephenson, praising proficiency levels of students learning Mandarin Chinese at West and East high schools in Salt Lake City.

Money also could be spent on improving technology to deliver the courses online or via satellite, Cottam said.

Last school year, more than 71,000 students — 31 percent of seventh- through 12th-graders — were enrolled in some kind of foreign language course, state education data show.

Just under two-thirds were took Spanish, followed by about 15 percent taking French and 10 percent German. Students also were enrolled in classes from American Sign Language to Hebrew last school year.

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