Being bilingual has been linked with a lot of benefits
Being bilingual is AFAIK a strong signal of cognitive competence: given a choice between 2 applicants for a cognitively-demanding job, one bilingual and one not bilingual, I would heavy favor the bilingual one. But that does not mean that investing effort in making a person bilingual increases the person’s cognitive competence to any significant degree.
One thing we don’t need studies or complex arguments for is the fact that it takes a lot of study and practice to learn a second language—time and mental energy that can be used to learn other things. Our society has accumulated an impressive store of potent knowledge, knowledge that takes a long time for people to acquire, but which clearly improves their lives and their ability to contribute to society. I’m very skeptical that the benefits of spending an hour learning a second language outweigh the benefits of spending an hour learning, e.g., history, geography, chemistry, physics, statistics, computer programming, practical human physiology, cooking, sewing, woodworking, accounting or the basics of public speaking or performing in front of an audience.
I’m anticipating that you will reply here that there is more to culture than knowledge that has obvious practical benefits. And my reply to that is that I don’t see why an hour spent on second-language learning would outweigh the benefits of an hour spent watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Desperate Housewives or browsing https://tvtropes.org/. Those 3 things are products of the dominant culture, and I suspect that most of the effort to save endangered languages stems from a perceived need to fight the dominant culture in any way possible (but I don’t perceive any need to fight against the dominant culture).
I was talking specifically about childhood language acquisition, where learning a new language doesn’t require you to forgo reading tvtropes or watching buffy the vampire slayer, it’s just part of your background acquisition the same way that children learn how gravity works and how to manipulate small objects as they grow up.
Then there’s the cultural value of language that I raised in my previous post, especially for minority cultures (and you state that things from your culture like Buffy and TVTropes are valuable to you). I’m assuming you’re from an English-dominant culture. Can you imagine if you moved to, say, Portugal, and you learned Portugese and all your friends and family spoke Portugese all the time, you might feel as though something was lacking if they watched Buffy episodes that had been dubbed into Portugese?
I was talking specifically about childhood language acquisition, where learning a new language doesn’t require you to forgo reading tvtropes or watching buffy the vampire slayer, it’s just part of your background acquisition the same way that children learn how gravity works and how to manipulate small objects as they grow up.
It maybe easy for the child, but it can take a lot of effort and energy from the parents.
I am the father of a sort-of bilingual child. I am Danish and we live in Denmark, but my wife is Chinese. Our 4-year-old son speaks good Danish, but his Chinese is very weak. My wife tries on-and-off to insist on speaking Chinese to him, but it is a struggle because he does not like it. So it is hard work for her, and she often does not have the energy and falls back to speaking Danish to him.
I speak nary a word Chinese. I could of course study Chinese so I could contribute, but that would be a huge effort.
Being bilingual is AFAIK a strong signal of cognitive competence: given a choice between 2 applicants for a cognitively-demanding job, one bilingual and one not bilingual, I would heavy favor the bilingual one. But that does not mean that investing effort in making a person bilingual increases the person’s cognitive competence to any significant degree.
One thing we don’t need studies or complex arguments for is the fact that it takes a lot of study and practice to learn a second language—time and mental energy that can be used to learn other things. Our society has accumulated an impressive store of potent knowledge, knowledge that takes a long time for people to acquire, but which clearly improves their lives and their ability to contribute to society. I’m very skeptical that the benefits of spending an hour learning a second language outweigh the benefits of spending an hour learning, e.g., history, geography, chemistry, physics, statistics, computer programming, practical human physiology, cooking, sewing, woodworking, accounting or the basics of public speaking or performing in front of an audience.
I’m anticipating that you will reply here that there is more to culture than knowledge that has obvious practical benefits. And my reply to that is that I don’t see why an hour spent on second-language learning would outweigh the benefits of an hour spent watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Desperate Housewives or browsing https://tvtropes.org/. Those 3 things are products of the dominant culture, and I suspect that most of the effort to save endangered languages stems from a perceived need to fight the dominant culture in any way possible (but I don’t perceive any need to fight against the dominant culture).
I was talking specifically about childhood language acquisition, where learning a new language doesn’t require you to forgo reading tvtropes or watching buffy the vampire slayer, it’s just part of your background acquisition the same way that children learn how gravity works and how to manipulate small objects as they grow up.
There’s plenty of research showing that bilingual children have some small advantages, e.g.: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/advantages_of_a_bilingual_brain
Then there’s the cultural value of language that I raised in my previous post, especially for minority cultures (and you state that things from your culture like Buffy and TVTropes are valuable to you). I’m assuming you’re from an English-dominant culture. Can you imagine if you moved to, say, Portugal, and you learned Portugese and all your friends and family spoke Portugese all the time, you might feel as though something was lacking if they watched Buffy episodes that had been dubbed into Portugese?
It maybe easy for the child, but it can take a lot of effort and energy from the parents.
I am the father of a sort-of bilingual child. I am Danish and we live in Denmark, but my wife is Chinese. Our 4-year-old son speaks good Danish, but his Chinese is very weak. My wife tries on-and-off to insist on speaking Chinese to him, but it is a struggle because he does not like it. So it is hard work for her, and she often does not have the energy and falls back to speaking Danish to him.
I speak nary a word Chinese. I could of course study Chinese so I could contribute, but that would be a huge effort.