> only a small elite who needs to do business with english speaking
> businessmen will have to talk english.
And if a Czech person (businessman/woman or not), who is not necessarily one of the "elite," needs to communicate with a Chinese person, what language will they use? Just finding Czech-Chinese translators would be difficult enough. Often enough, relay translations need to be used. You could say that such cases are rare, but if you believe that it is a good thing for people to communicate at the grass roots across borders all over the world, they ought to become less rare. You say that activism should be local, but is there no place at all for actions that are coordinated world-wide?
Also, AFAIK, English is still the principal language of aviation, and much of the Internet/computer industry, among others. You could say that these are "elites" (i.e., small percentages of the world's population) but they play rather crucial roles in tying the world together.
This is beside my original point, however, which was that the idea of "pure languages" with essences uncontaminated by foreign tongues has always been a myth.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ After the Buddha died, people still kept pointing to his shadow in a cave for centuries—an enormous, dreadful shadow. God is dead: but the way people are, there may be, for millennia, caves in which his shadow is still pointed to. — And we — we must still overcome his shadow! —Friedrich Nietzsche