"And one of His signs is the creation of the heaven and the earth and the diversity of your tongues and colours; most surely there are signs in this for the learned"(30:22)

Legacy of Languages.
There are other communities too across the world who speak more than one language, - three or four. This comes about because the parents and teachers in the communities speak with the children in the languages which the parents know. The result is a legacy of languages in the family not for the sake of it, but for ensuring that the children, who will later find themselves in their life on their own, are well equipped for a competitive and gainful interaction in the human society. Speaking more than one language is a social accomplishment.

The slaves on their transportation across the Atlantic were laid down flat and chained together in the tiered bunks like tinned salmon (fish). They had to be brought up onto the upper deck of the ship periodically for a short spell of the essential sunshine and physical exercise. The only possible weapon they could have and of which the captain and the crew were afraid was the knowledge of more than one tribal language among the slaves. They were shipped in such groups as would comprise them of different tribes speaking one different language so as to daunt any attempt of staging a mutiny with the precision planning and timing. This was because communication is power; the more the language-media for it, the stronger the base of this power.

Language As an Asset.
For a person speaking more languages is a socio-cultural asset with economic dimensions. Every language is a worthy component of the asset. This asset is enviable by those who as a community or a nation speak only one language - generation after generation.

To let the child gain the asset during the period of early childhood is within the control of the parents who themselves have so gained. When the period of childhood is over, and if the child has not been let to gain the asset in the family in continuation of the legacy, a 'crime' will have been committed against the child by no others than his own parents. The child when adult will have no legacy of 'competitiveness in languages' to pass on. The child will remember the parents, not kindly, for this thoughtless and myopic omission or, worse still, parental negligence.