Lughaidh...I don't know if it's an American thing or if it's just a "my family" thing, but there seems to be a perception that spending the time to learn a language that you don't "need" to speak and that gives you no economic advantage is a waste of time. I've had people ask, for example, why I haven't spent all this time learning Spanish (which is economically useful in California) or a language that might come in handy while traveling, such as French, Italian, or German.

I think this is the situation in countries that are mainly English-speaking. Many people use the 'need' argument, but they do mean 'need' in the sense of trade etc. They ignore the 'need' of cultural identity, sense of ownership, history etc. English-speaking countries are lazy about languages. Two thirds of the world's population is bilingual - I bet not too many of that statistic come from English-speaking countries.