Of late, youngsters are making a beeline for institutes teaching foreign languages, never mind if English is all Greek and Latin for them. Starry-eyed students, eager-beaver employees and jobless youths are pounding books to master Japanese, German, Spanish, Mandarin, etc., but courses in Arabic and French remain the talk of the town in metros across the country.

   Thanks to globalisation, the demand for foreign language experts in multinational companies and Indian conglomerates has been on the upward slope of late. And with glossophiles laughing their way to the bank, it is not surprising that sophomores are hotfooting it to classes offering short-term or degree courses in even Arabic which is spoken by 230 million people in over 40 countries.

   If Alliance Francaise, which promotes French language and culture throughout the world, trains a whopping 500,000 students a year at its 850 centres in 133 countries, Max Mueller....