Americans are known for monolingualism, their feeling English alone will do the job. Yet, perhaps they are correct. Evan R. Goldstein has written an article for The Wall Street Journal which suggests, ever so tentatively, that most of us will never need other languages. He quotes the president of the Paris Institute of Political Studies as saying:
We have to stop saying that English is one of the languages. It is the language of international exchange: commercial, military, and also intellectual and scientific. . . . It is no longer an object of debate.Imagine hearing that from a Frenchman. He hints at the truth, that in many fields of study, all scientific journals are published in English regardless of where they are based. But he doesn't mention that English is also the universal language of international air traffic.
Based on some travel the other DrC and I have done this year, I am tempted to risk a prediction. I'm guessing that 50 years from now most of the developed world will communicate in more-or-less accented English.
