The following post is a reply to an article published in The Observer, concerned with the issue of knowing more than one language. In my opinion, people who know more than one language are better prepared to interact in world that surrounds us, are more sensitive to other people's needs and views, can express their opinions in many more ways and finally are able to communicate with foreigners effortlessly. For those reasons, knowing another language is a blessing and a great privilege. Apart from all those aforementioned arguments, concerning largely the emotional aspect of our personalities, knowing a second langauge also opens many gates as far as material matters go, e.g. it helps get a better job or simply score better grades at school ;-)
According to linguists specializing in second language acquisition, multilingualism is the norm, while monolingualism is an exception. An interesting fact is that, about a half of the global population know and use more than one language in their daily life. While there are almost 7,000 languages in the world, there are only over 200 countries where they are spoken.
Since the topic of this blog is the American South, I think it is worth mentioning that many people who live in the state of Louisiana know both English and French, for the state used to be the French colony in the past.
In my opinion the idea of ceasing to teach foreign languages in British schools is just ridiculous. Even though English has become lingua franca and everyone in the world is more likely expected to communicate in English than in his or her mother tongue, I think that learning a language takes much more than just this.This is an invaluable muscle training for our brain and gray cells. Hence, even though British students already know English, I think they should definitely know at least one other language. If not out of personal satisfaction or willingness to communicate better with those who do not know English, then just out of politeness towards those who learn their mother tongue as well.
