&quot;IMHO different languages are equally annoying, useless and impossible to deprecate&quot;<p>Not understanding different cultures, thinking their very existence is &quot;annoying and useless&quot; and thus wanting them gone? Yeah, that&#x27;s being afraid of something alien. And &quot;afraid&quot; is a nice way to put it.<p>I speak 4 languages fluently and learn more because it&#x27;s fun, it&#x27;s beautiful, it teaches you a lot about people and culture and it even improves your understanding of languages you already speak. It&#x27;s also a wonderful way to immerse yourself into a country you&#x27;re moving into for the first time. This thread is filled with people who lack that perspective and think their opinion is informed and considerate because &quot;I know I might have to learn a new language and that&#x27;s fine&quot;. Let me remind you how this thread started: &quot;why are we putting up with other languages anyway?&quot;.<p>We already have a lingua franca in the western world and it is English. It&#x27;s as good as it can get. But the replies here, unhappy with that, boil down to &quot;let&#x27;s make it official and declare every other language as dead, then let&#x27;s force that onto the non-english-speaking world&quot;.<p>I used to think like this, btw. I wondered why we bother with different languages. Why going to another country had such a high artificial barrier of entry. Why we didn&#x27;t just agree on one and left languages to &quot;hobbyists&quot;. But I was 8 years old and didn&#x27;t know any better. I expect more from HN.