Linguistic diversity should be discouraged

[AFTT47]

When I was in school in India, I was taught 4 languages: English, Hindi, Kannada and Sanskrit. If that's not bad enough, I spoke a fifth language, Malayalam, at home. It would've been far better if India had just one language; then I may have been able to master it as well as I did English. While nothing can be done about the existence of multiple languages in India or the world, it is surely possible to actively discourage linguistic multiplicity at least at the national level. For example, the federal government can decide to teach a maximum of 2 languages at school. I shudder to think how much time I could have saved if I didn't have to learn all those additional languages.

Thoughts?

I see both sides of this argument. Personally, I only speak English although at different times in my life, I had rudimentary skills in Spanish and Japanese. I lost interest in both when the need vanished.

From a practical standpoint, I embrace the utility of a single language. There's enough useful bits of knowledge and skills to master without cluttering up one's limited memory capacity with redundant languages. On the other hand, it is said that a culture survives only as long as its language survives.

I favor the practical - which is easy when you are American and learned the dominant language of the world by default. I respect those that learn English as a second language because it's an inconsistent mess.

One of my funnier memories is of a Japanese woman I once worked with who developed a very good command of English inside of two years. Once, when she was under the influence of alcohol, she expressed her frustration of trying to understand the concept of, "shit." She ranted, "There's good shit, bad shit, fucking shit - I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!"

I would really hate to have to learn English as a second language because it really is a mess. Kudos to all who have done so.