Economist.com | The European Union
In central Europe, as in much of the world, knowledge of English has become a basic skill of modern life comparable with the ability to drive a car or use a personal computer.
It would be too easy to say how this phenomenon is bad. After all, we have the symbolic loss of individuality here, if such a term can be applied to whole nations or cultures.
In trade, we get the ability to communicate easily with ever-growing masses of people with whom we could not communicate before. We also get standardized methods and techniques of information. Is this important? Try visualizing an air traffic controller trying to coordinate his/her allotted flights while being talked to in ten different languages.
To contemplate: how is it possible to retain the good parts of cultural identity while being a global citizen? And, what are the good parts of cultural identity, anyway?
white pebble 