Ahhh well I'll tell you a couple of stories;

Many years ago when I was much younger I was working in England for a few
months with some workmates also from Australia.
I was staying in small hotel which was a real United Nations.
WE were planning a trip to France Switzerland and Italy.

A frenchman asked us were we going to the beaches in the South of France.
Why would we go to see a lot of stones ?
Anyway, he asked did we speak French, German or Italian.
We all said no. I said I thought of learning a language, but which one ?
You could go to all the trouble of lerning a language and it would only
be usable in one country out of the four we eventually visited.

Quite a few years later I went to Denmark on business and I mentioned
to my contact in the company how everyone there spoke English.
His reply was that once they step over the border NO ONE understands them.
So you see it is a problem for everyone, including the French and
Germans that elsewhere in the world they have trouble.

I did after my first trip to Europe learn Esperanto and I did in
fact read Murdo en la Orienta Expresso by Agatha Christy.
Don't anyone reply in Esperanto as I have forgotten it.

I think that's a brilliant article Paul, substantiated beautifully and wittily by reference to several language cases.

However, the picture's shades becomes very stark here in Australia where English language, earlier migration policy and the proximity to Asia saddled this country not only with the staunch monolingualism of English but also a rather primitive "Fortress Europe" siege mentality a la Vienna vs the Ottomans. I refer here to a general "western" bias against non-European languages.

It's very funny to observe the reaction of people we may describe as white supremacists and the "speak English or die" crowd, or even their honorary member-toady imitators from non-European backgrounds. They can seem to carp on forever about the singularity, uniqueness and primacy of a "western culture" they claim as their own pure, original inheritance, while blind to parallels or precedents elsewhere. But they suddenly become super-relativist when they encounter self-criticism within that culture: "Ah, but someone over their sounds racist too"! Such people seem aware of other cultures only when they can spot what they want to see: extremes of violence, poverty, and those lowest common denominators.

Well, here's the news. We do not criticize our culture out of some naive belief that other cultures are without their own racism, supremacism or troubles learning other languages. But comparisons are especially clear in showing how far behind English speakers lag. I think I speak for many by saying that we make such self-criticism because we want to see our own culture grow to become healthier and stronger into the future. My children depend on such positive change and the hope it offers for a yet richer and more interesting experience of our world.

Get over it Paul Doolan,you self flagellating Western hater.How many languages can ordinary folk learn in a life time?Time spent learning a lauguage,is time lost developing logic.You have obiviously spent too much time on the former.

Western Development of:

Ethics:
Plato, Nicomachean Ethics, Epictitus, Aquinas, Hobbes, Montaigne,Spinoza, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Mill, and Darwin.

Jurisprudence:
Aeschylus, Plato, Atistotle, Old Testament, New Testament, Plutarch, Aquinas, Hobbes, Shakespeare, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Kant, The US Constitution, Hegel and Doestoevesky.

Science and Maths:
Euclid, Archimedes, Nicomachus, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, Pascal, Newton, Huygens and Lavoisier.

Philosophy:
Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Aquinas, Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley,Hume, Kant and James.

Literature:
Homer, Euripides, Aristophanes, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Milton, Fielding, Goethe, Melville, Tolstoy, and Doestovesy.

Medicine/Biology/Psychology:
Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Harvey, Darwin, James and Freud.

Politics and Government:
Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Old Testament, New Testament, Tacitus,Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Shakespeare, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Locke, Kant, Mill and Hegel.

Religion and theology:

Aeschylus, Plato, Old Testament, New Testament, St. Agustine, Aquinas, Dante, Hobbes, Montaigne, Milton, Pascal, Locke, Hume, Doestovesky and Freud.

Specific reading references refer to: (The above are from this source)

A General Introduction to the Great Books (of the Western World) and to a Liberal Education. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. 1959. Chicago.

I've not read them all yet but have read many. They are the veins through which the blood of our language and culture flows.

Paul Doolan show me a set of readings as comprehensive and as deep from any or all of the cultures you champion. ie Arabic, the various Indian traditional cultures, Pakistani or whatever.

You cannot!

A more difficult task would be for you to find a handful of those you champion who'd be familiar with the ideas written by these Westerners.

Yet you have the gall to call us ignorant. The fact this body of work has constantly moved from being written in Hebrew, Greek, Roman and English and it's various developments as well as including translations from all of the major non-English speaking German, French, Spanish, Russian, and Italian contributors is indicative of inclusion and diversity unique to Westerners and is in no way evidence of, as you spruke, a wallowing in an Anglophone ingorance.

Paul you should read with greater depth and comprehension before you cast the first ignorance stone...

Great article Paul Doolan. The monolinguists didn't get it and removed any doubt about the ignorant being ignorant.

Mr Right, you are wrong. The vast majority of people speak more than one language. It is ONLY native English speakers who are overwhelmingly monolingual.

Keith, loved your list. Do you realize that in that great list of yours there are very few English speaking authors? So I'm very curious how you think 'They are the veins through which the blood of our language and culture flows.' You've read translations. I'd start by brushing up on your Greek for starters.

As anybody who even barely understands another language knows that translation is an art that is wholly dependent on the subjective interpretation of the translator. Reading Shakespeare translated into the same language by different translators can be quite amusing. Ditto Goethe, any of the Russian authors or French.

Knowing another language makes your world much larger. Why English speakers are so resistant is a mystery to me. You are depriving yourself of much. Even just one other language. Is it that you are all afraid you can't learn another language?

Yvonne ,it is language elitism.We speak four languages,therefore we are superior.It is just like having too much money.In ya face and obscene.

The reality is that unless you speak a language regularly,you lose it.Very few have the mental ability to keep it without constant practise.