SBO would seem to have little interest in social history. That is his entitlement, and his loss. Maybe, too, he (or I suppose she) is handicapped by a lack of imagination. If SBO could imagine just for a moment that he had staked all on English, as he seems to have done, only to see it swept aside by a language with a bigger following (he probably didn'tknow there were any).... Well I can imagine how quickly his smugness would fade, even if he can't.

Three languages is in fact an understatement for many intellectuals in western Europe. I know some who speak four to six (four is almost the norm for many Swiss). Robert Maxwell, who was not an intellectual by any stretch, and had only a peasant education until making hisself known to British intelligence in WW2, spoke nine languages. He was willing to negotiate in six and was accepted as a native speaker in four or five.

For anyone prepared to make some small effort, and who has a mind slightly more open than SBO's, learning a language is no big deal. How far you go with it after that obviously depends on what opportunies you get to use/develop it. Which reminds me, I'm learning Croatian at present, to speed up some research I'm doing. If anyone can put me in touch with people who can speak and write it, I'd appreciate a PM.