Dislike for foreign languages hurts Britain

Since the Labour government removed foreign languages from the core curriculum of British schools in 2004, the school authorities have determined that the British are less and less willing to learn a second language. That will harm Britain, writes the German-born poet and translator Michael Hofmann in the left-liberal Sunday paper The Observer: "The so-called 'world language', English, is spoken as a first language by just 7 percent of the world's inhabitants; 75 percent of people speak no English. Languages are some of the oldest, deepest, uncanniest, most thoughtful human inventions. A disdain for, or a lack of interest in, all the others does not seem to me to be a civilised or even a tolerable state of affairs. Foreigners will go on learning English, regardless. The British have an obligation, it seems to me, to reciprocate. Call it what you like - mutuality, courtesy, fair exchange, good practice. Not to do so is in every sense hateful. A self-exemption. ... A departure from international polity."

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