One Voice? Many Languages! The value of multilingualism in our modern world (part 1)

As a child, I was fascinated when I first heard someone speaking French, enthralled when I tried to work out the meaning of words from a story book in German, and delighted when listening to a friend’s grandmother singing Funiculì, funiculà with gusto, as she changed the bedlinen. Other languages were intriguing, exciting and exotic, and at that time, hearing other languages in our day-to-day lives was relatively unusual.

The world has changed. For young people reaching adulthood in the early part of the 21st century, the world in which they make friends, study and work is multilingual and culturally diverse. The soundscape is different; as we walk through the park and down the high street, we hear a polyphony of many different voices from Eastern Europe, from subcontinental Asia, from the Middle East, from Hong Kong, from Asia Pacific and from Africa, in addition to the voices of British indigenous languages and those of our nearer European neighbours, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy, Spain and Scandinavia. The way we live our lives varies among different communities; there are different traditions, beliefs and cultural norms. Diversity and variety are experienced in the way we eat, dress, celebrate and socialise. This is as much a reality in rural areas as it is in our towns and cities, and our lives are richer for it.