Languages: Are They Dying Out?

As a child born in an Indian family, despite never living in India, I’ve always been brought up bilingual and after I started primary school, even trilingual. I always remember speaking English and Telugu as I grew and learning Hindi once I started school. But for me, being multilingual wasn’t an option – it was a necessity. Being multilingual meant that every summer when I went on holiday to India, I could communicate without any issues and be fully understood. My love for languages is such that I learned about one and a half years of German and about three years of French. It doesn’t stop there – I want to continue French until I get to university and probably even after. Just a few weeks ago, I decided to take up Italian and if I have time, I want to master Italian too.

Languages are a passion for me. But I sat down to wonder that in modern day Britain, I haven’t seen very many people who are multilingual. Is it because they just can’t be bothered to take up a language or is it because they don’t have the need to? I happened to read somewhere that English is the language spoken by the greatest number of non-native speakers and it shocked me to read that by 2025, every Chinese person, right from the rich to the poor will be able to speak English. Even in India, a large majority of the middle class speak English incredibly fluently. But I wondered, in a country like Britain, where people chose to go on holiday every year to various destinations in Europe and abroad, why is it that most people are monolingual? Is it a sign of weakness in intelligence? A sign of not needing to? Or is it just pure human nature?

Taking up a language is meant to be one of the most helpful things. Not only does it help jog up your memory and keep it fresh, but it could even beat diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Knowing a language is seen very greatly by universities and improving your chances of getting in. For jobs it is essential if you chose to live abroad and having a language in your CV means your chances of getting a job are multiplied. It eases the process of travel a lot more because for once, you can actually understand what other say. Languages broaden knowledge about cultures and keep those cultures alive. With all of these reasons present for every one to learn a language, I wondered – is it monolingualism that is increasingly popular or is multilingualism dying out? An increase in one would mean the decrease in another. Are we just ignorant to the fact that in this world, 6912 languages exist, waiting for us to learn just one more than we are born with?