Fòram na Gàidhlig

Even if the vast majority of pupils never use their languages after they leave school, there are many studies that prove learning a language makes them better at learning everything else. Children who study a foreign language are better at maths than students who don't – even when language classes mean they have less time in maths classes. Bilingual children are better at reading and spelling, better at grammar and word-recognition; they write better. Young children taught second languages have better cognitive flexibility and creative thinking skills. There is even a study that found students who studied Latin, French, German or Spanish in high school performed better at college than students of equal academic ability who did not take a foreign language.

The case for learning another language, or having another language, though, is not that you need it to use and understand your own. Nor is it the banal, utilitarian one that it's good to be able to order a beer or a room in another country. It's not the vulgar economic one that it's good to be able to schmooze your takeover target or your foreign boss. It's that you're not making enough of your individual (or collective) human potential if you allow yourself to be enclosed by one language.