Anglophones are blessed and cursed to speak the planet's lingua franca; wherever we go, the world indulges our ignorance. That's surely why the U.S. has such a low rate of bilingualism. The other reason is just stubborn, swollen pride, particularly among males. American men don't speak foreign languages for the same reason we don't consult road maps or dance the tango: because we're afraid of looking stupid, particularly in hostile terrain. It is a humiliating thing to be reduced to a babbling buffoon, all the while knowing that if they'd just for God's sake speak ENGLISH one would be revealed as the charming and eloquent man folks know back home.
Read the whole ARTICLE before jumping to quick conclusions.
I speak three languages fluently (with different accents if I wish to do so). I have lectured in other two and I can also get by if stranded in several countries where others are spoken. I am convinced that SOME things can only be said and properly understood in one language and when they are translated into others, they lose a lot of their meaning and emphasis. Even the personality and mannerisms of an individual may change with the spoken language.
Interestingly, English is one of the richest and fastest growing languages on earth. Everybody should speak it but I do wonder if many single-language Anglophones are missing quite a bit of good things in life. Albeit, a CBC interviewer who is a good friend of mine makes the best impersonations of English accents from English to Welch to Irish to Jamaican to Indian to Scottish to Australian to South African etc etc and he makes me roll with laughter. They do sound so different ... like different languages!
I am pretty sure some people would find it interesting to contrast US accents from the NE to the deep South to Tennessee to the Bayou to Texas to etc. Interesting country that of yours.
Happy New Year.
