A Monolingual Planet

History is an odd thing. When many centuries ago Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who were speaking a number of different dialects, invaded Britain, there were very few chances that their language would survive and become one of the most widely spoken languages on the planet and definitely the most important one for the international communication. However, this unbelievable thing happened and now each day more and more people want to learn the English language.

The popularity of learning foreign languages is constantly growing in all the countries except those, which are primarily English speaking. The only people interested in learning another language are the foreigners who have come to learn English. Unfortunately, the lucky ones with the knowledge of the language-number-one as their mother tongue do not feel the need and the necessity to learn any other language than the one they have been speaking in since their birth. They are constantly waiting for the rest of the world to become totally monolingual. And there is a fair chance it will. But there is an equally fair chance the only language spoken on our planet will soon be Chinese. One language will definitely mean more understanding and less time and efforts spent negotiating agreements, but will it make the mankind happier?

Unfortunately, the idea that speaking one language will improve the life of people considerably is very unlikely. Instead, the absence of necessity to learn foreign languages will deprive us of many important achievements. Learning another language develops your memory, forms a wider system of background knowledge and gives you a deep insight into the mentality of other nations. So, linguistic knowledge must be an integral part of any professional education.