Let’s take French as our example. In America, French isn’t just the language of one of our allies, or a way to speak to remand groups of the Acadian colonies. It held top-dog billing in international politics, even spawning the term lingua franca to indicate the use of a language used in a particular area as a uniting force. It has a reputation for being romantic; go now and tell your partner, “Je t'aime plus que la respiration elle-même.” You’ll see them smile even if they don’t know you just confessed to loving them more than breath itself. The French languages has ties to Paris, to French culture, to refinement and class.

In short, knowing how to speak French has become a status symbol, something that French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would call habitus.