Tongue-tied by language

One of the exciting and challenging ways in which New Zealand and Australia has changed over the past 50 or so years has been the explosive flowering of linguistic diversity in our communities. This change has been an uneasy one and from time to time various people have put forward the view that if only everyone spoke English we would all become a happy band of homogenous New Zealanders or Australians. Such a view is both delightfully innocent and dangerously ignorant.