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PainSmith -> Monolingual English is a disadvantage (5/5/2008 3:07:12 PM)
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This is my 'hello world' topic, posted here instead of haunting Castle Glampenstein for once.
A couple of years ago, the British Council published a report showing that English had become such a global language that, in some professions at least, everyone speaks it. The way things are going, in a decade or so, almost everyone will speak English in any profession that requires brains. Being an English speaker will be nothing special. Many people will speak another language. Monolingual English people will not. Polyglots can think in the way of their other languages. Monoglots cannot. Thus polyglots will have the advantage. That's why the British Council believe native English speakers need to learn another language. English has become too successful.
There's a good summary here (from Mandarin speakers; I couldn't resist):
http://english.people.com.cn/200602/18/eng20060218_243850.html
You can download the report here:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-research-englishnext.htm
This suggests to me people who want to standardise a country on English alone are people who want to make their country fail. Of course, this could never happen in the UK, it has too many native languages. But might it happen in England itself? Or America?
Comments?
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