Alex, you just indicated why English speaker indeed should learn another language, or why it is not such a bad idea, despite the fact that all the others do speak some form of English... the reasons to learn a language go beyond love or curiosity... to speak or understand a language - not the same thing necessarily - also means to understand a culture, or is at least a gateway to begin to understand... language also transports meaning and culture.. "The Internet is not static, continues to evolve, mostly out of the English- speaking realm where it's so integrated with the culture, " if this is true for the Internet, then other languages may give a hint on how these adapt to this technology, how they see the world etc... also we all can communicate with English as a lingua franca, we may not understand the other rightly.. just a thought.... best nilz
The downside of all this for the English-speaking world is that it reinforces mono-lingualism and language chauvinism. It's admirable to learn a language for love or curiosity, but the fact is that most people do it for economic advantage and up until recently, English speakers haven't had to.
-- Dr. Nils Zurawski Universität Hamburg Inst. für kriminologische Sozialforschung Allende-Platz 1 20146 Hamburg Germany tel. +49 (0) 40 42838 6185 fax. +49 (0) 40 42838 2328 Projekt zu Videoüberwachung: http://www.surveillance-studies.org