Multilingualism a 'damned nuisance' says Dutch academic

On the eve of the release of the European Commission's first-ever communication on mulitlingualism, a Dutch academic has called multilingualism "a pain in the neck" at an EU debate on the topic in Brussels.

Abram de Swaan, emeritus research professor for social science at the University of Amsterdam, put a cat amongst the pigeons at a recent debate organised by the European Commission by attacking the need to employ multiple languages.

"Language diversity is not of itself a wealth...