Apart from life itself (and the fact she loves me so much still, despite me pushing her buttons for so many of my younger years) it is probably the greatest gift my mum gave me: her language.

Those that have read more of what I write will have seen me talk of my roots before. I was born and raised in Germany to a German father and an American mother, and moved to the UK in my late teens. Born into this setup, I was blessed with not learning one, but two languages from day one. Part of it was a necessity: my mother didn't speak much German when I arrived, although she is fully fluent now.

However, there was another reason I was pushed towards languages growing up: pure pragmatism. I had a teacher in Germany that warned us that unless we wanted to spend our whole life holidaying on Sylt, an island on the north coast of Germany, we would have to learn to speak a language that wasn’t German. Obviously, learning languages isn’t just to make holidays go more smoothly, but what they said holds true: most people outside of Germany do not speak German and, if we wanted to communicate, we would have to adapt.

It is common for most Germans to learn at least two foreign languages while at school. We learned English in school from when we were about eight or nine, followed by French when I was about 12.

Knowing English was a big part of me moving to the UK and staying here. Growing up bilingual, I took comfort in the knowledge that the culture shock a move to a new country would bring, would at least not be paired with a language barrier, and I was right. That is something I see as a gift, and I’m forever grateful for.

Another gift is what it has done to my brain. Aside from the often hailed cognitive benefits, learning a language has made me open to - and slightly better at - picking up more of them. I liked French in school, and was reasonably good at it. I have dabbled in other languages since, always finding it relatively easy, which has helped me make connections in so many places.

There is a reason I have gone into so much detail about how I became bilingual and what learning languages has done for me. Before I go on to say what I am about to say, I want to emphasise something I hope has become somewhat apparent through the above: I feel extremely lucky.

I am lucky that I had a parent that already helped me speak a second language for as long as I can remember. I am lucky I was pushed so heavily towards languages by my teachers and the education system while at school.

I do not see monolingualism as a crime. Nor do I think that people that only speak one language only have themselves to blame. Learning a language is complex, time-intensive, and - to be frank - can be hard. It really isn’t for everyone and not every person has the right environment to commit to learning a new language, especially later in life.

Still, just as much based on my own, positive experiences, I can’t help feel sad at what is the current state of modern language learning in the UK.

This week, according to a story in The Gaudie, the newspaper produced by students of the University of Aberdeen, the university is launching a consultation about the future of their modern language programme due to “growing financial deficits” and “falling demand” for modern languages at the university and across the country.

Aberdeen University isn’t the first one to do this. In July 2020, one headline read “’Intellectual Brexit’ fears as Dundee University drops German”, and only three months later similar wording emerged as Edinburgh Napier announced it would reduce its language programme.

Looking into the issue at the time for a university project, I quickly learned it wasn’t just universities, but a wider issue. As stated by the Aberdeen spokesperson, universities are considering actively downsizing, sometimes fully cutting, modern language programmes because demand for them is dropping.

According to the data by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), pupils entering modern languages at Higher level has decreased, making up 3.7% of all entries in 2023, versus 4.8% in 2019. In England, the trend is much the same.

I asked some students from the UK who, like me, spoke more than one language. All said they felt it had benefited them to study a modern language at university because it boosted their career, and they learned more about other cultures.

I also asked others why they had dropped language learning from their curriculum at school. One said they didn’t have space, they wanted to do engineering, so picked their subjects accordingly, but added they didn’t feel encouraged to do languages either.

Another said that it was due to grades. She did not want to risk her scores for a subject she felt she didn’t excel at. Both are valid reasons. You can’t blame any person, particularly students that are so tied to an education pathway focused on getting good grades, for thinking this way.

Yet, when paired with the high numbers of people that end up not learning languages (aside from the numbers above, The British Council estimates that around two thirds of the UK population only speak English) it just feels like … a shame.

Aside from people potentially missing out on a personal level, it has to be said that the drop in language learning may also be bad for the UK as a whole.

English is seen as the lingua franca and I can’t help feel that some of the hesitancy for English speakers to learn another language must be attributed to this. The UK, like the US (according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 80% of Americans can only speak English) has gotten away with not learning other languages, and part of that is because others are learning English instead.

Will that trend prevail? Even if it does, is it really healthy to be so insular? Some scholars went as far as saying monolingualism is the illiteracy of the 21st century, and I do find myself siding with that argument more.

It has to be said that each government says it is hoping to reverse the trend. In Scotland, the 1+2 Languages scheme, will hopefully see pupils taught their own language, plus two others by the end of S3.

There apparently is also an appetite. While pupils taking German and French at Higher level in Scotland are decreasing according to the SQA, Spanish actually saw an uptake, although numbers are still below what they were in 2019. Mandarin, however, has actually seen an increase in uptake.

I hope that this hunger lasts and maybe even grows for other languages. I do not see monolingualism as a crime, but I do wish it would be less of a common feature here in the UK.