[konaice]

"Well something is lost..."

As opposed to everything being lost if forced to learn EVERY single language on earth just on the OFF chance you will need its specific naunace in some situation later in life?

Since most people can only master two or three languages, the chance of having just enough of the fourth or fifth to come forth with that subtle shade of meaning when you need it is slim indeed.

I believe it was Knuth who put forth the proposition that anything that can be expresed in one closed syntatical language could be expressed in any other such language.

If Java does not meet this standard, then perhaps its the wrong tool for the job. Never been impressed with it myself.

[Cronos]

As opposed to everything being lost if forced to learn EVERY single language on earth just on the OFF chance you will need its specific naunace in some situation later in life?

Now did I say THAT either? No. I said one should be at least trilingual. There should be languages one can communicate with -- here in the US that is English. The new immigrants MUST learn English, but to mandate their native languages out of existance is wrong and will leave the world a poorer place.

Similarly, if you live in England, you speak English, but to let Welsh die out would be a shame.

IMHO, if you know the following 7 languages you can travel the world and in most cases get on -- the languages being: Chinese, English, Spanish, Arabic, French, Swahili and Russian. Spanish is an important language and trying to legislate it out os existance is as futile as the l’Académie française