There are only about 5000 languages left in the world. And the number is shrinking fast. “With the rise of international travel, world commerce, globalization and mass media, that number is declining rapidly. Of working languages still in everyday use, there are perhaps only 120. And more than half the world speaks one (or more) of only a dozen languages, including Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Russian – and, of course, English, the most pervasive of them all. Some linguists estimate nearly two billion people have at least a workaday knowledge of English, and that number is growing.”