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Comment by FlyingSnake | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes I really pity the monolinguals who can’t witness the beauty of the varied linguistic cultures of the world.

It’s not a brag but here’s a sample of how my polylingustic life looks like: In the past week I had discussions about Clausewitz’s “Vom Krige” and “Rét Samadhi” by Gitanjali Shree, discussed Marathi poetry with my daughter, listened to mellifluous Tamil songs like “Nenjukkul Peidhidum”, appreciated my wife’s Uttara Kannada accent, all the while consuming English media in copious amounts.

Languages and accents are a unique part of being human and I firmly believe that we’re meant to be multilingual.

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You're talking about the huge amount of content you can consume but speak nothing of creation. No matter what you enjoy, there is an unfathomable spectrum of the human experience you have not been a part of. Your particular preference is not superior to anyone else's.

You brought in „superiority” into this not me.

BTW how are monolinguals immune to the charge you’ve laid against me? At least we multilinguals can enjoy the “unfathomable expanse” in more dimensions than them.

You said it was part of being human, that we are meant to be multilingual (so monolinguals aren't human enough?), you clarified "it's not a brag" (i.e. it sounds like a brag), you said you pity them.

> BTW how are monolinguals immune to the charge you’ve laid against me?

Monolinguals have to learn languages from scratch. This is a massive investment of time. You can do other things with that time. Some people spend their whole life creating art, music and writing. Are they superior to to people who only consume? Some people volunteer or travel the world, are they superior to those who cannot? Nobody can do everything, we all have to choose.

But humans were always multilingual the moment we left Africa. How else would the Sumerians, Romans, Persians, Indians, Chinese trade with each other? The "brag" is just a reality of most people of the world who aren't monolingual (e.g. Rammstein/Taylor Swift/K-Pop). Pity doesn't mean looking down upon them, it's just a remark about unrealized potential.

You seem to be projecting too much into this, the reality is not that complicated. It doesn't take much to pick up basics (CEFR A2 levels) of another language,if they chose to do so.

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