I’m stretching the scope of the blog today, since this post doesn’t actually discuss law, but I hope you’ll find it interesting. I have posted before about the TEDTalks initiative (see here about a patent pool, this post about plain language in Portugal, and this talk by Arianna Huffington about getting more sleep).

In the video below, Keith Chen, professor at Yale University in the USA discusses his research on how languages without a concept for the future – “It rain tomorrow”, instead of “It will rain tomorrow” – correlate with high savings rates and retirement assets.

The video is also subtitled* in French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Russian and Spanish if you access it at the TED webpage here (subtitles can found in the hidden roll-up menu in black under the video). You will see from the comments – scroll down below the posted talk – that people have plenty to say about his hypothesis (!).

*TEDTalks are subtitled by volunteers. If you’re interested in becoming a TED translator, more information is available here.