As the joke tells it: What do you call a person who speaks several languages? Multi-lingual. What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bi-lingual.

Punch line: What do you call a person who speaks just one language?  ENGLISH.

Not quite true: English language is a pidgin language. English is recognised as the first international language. It is estimated that 40 per cent of the world 8 billion people have a familiarity with the English language.

However, there is nothing for Brits to feel superior about, as English is far from being a pure language. The English language is patois European, a language rich in the lingua of many others.

Over 60 per cent of English words have Greek or Latin roots. In the vocabulary of the sciences and technology this figure rises to 90 per cent.

There you are, we are not speaking English as we are already speaking mostly Greek or Latin. Who said the British don’t or won’t speak a foreign language?

British already speak Spanish for about 40 per cent of the Spanish language, itself rooted in Latin. It is similar in the English version but with different pronunciation.

The sad truth is that our international friends and neighbours have little choice but to learn the English language.

Why? Because so few outside their own countries speak their own language. I cannot spell it out more clearly than that.

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