I only know it from Dilbert where it and Estonia figure in various ways.
* What do you call someone who knows:
- Two languages? Bilingual
- One Language? AmericanOther than the name sounding like Estonia and Albania, Dilbert's Elbonia has no relation to, inspiration from, or resemblance to those countries, or really any other specific country. It is doubtful the author knew much about those or any other nearby countries, and was uninterested in learning -- it was just a plot device to explore the current at the time topic of outsourcing. By using a fictional name the author hoped to avoid any displeasure from anyone insulted by the depiction. Contrast with Borat a decade later, which chose to pick a specific country for their cartoonish depiction.
Bill and George are also very popular names for children.
While US presidents often attract protests in Europe, it's the complete opposite in Albania and people turn up in hordes cheering for them, there's also highly favourable visas for US citizens, you can arrive and legally work for 12 months without question.
They have a lot of love and aren't quick to forget US support in the 90's when Yugoslavia broke up, a somewhat strange situation being a muslim majority country these days, yet the sentiment still remains just as strong.
It turns out though this has a mixed effect...
In good times, this works for the same reason you and I going to a job to get cash to then pay for groceries works a lot better than you and I also trying to grow our own food.
In bad times, if the country does not have the means to keep paying for and securing imports, famine, hunger, death, and violent upheaval happen.
If you were university-bound you usually had to take two or three, depending on where you were headed. It's nowhere near enough to speak fluently.
But I think the big problem in the English-speaking world is not the lack of mandatory languages, or the almost intentional ignorance that I feel like many people perceive [from Americans, at least]. Rather, it’s just not all that necessary, pragmatically speaking.
I am Arab, I grew up in the U.S., I went to university in Russia, and my roommates were from China. I feel like all four groups have similar reasons for their difficulties with other languages.
While, of course, learning any language is useful, and there’s always something interesting that you would miss out on otherwise, there is such an absurd amount of stuff available in English. And so many people you can communicate with purely through English. For better or for worse, it’s not quite like being from Iceland or Estonia, where the total number of people you can communicate with in your native tongue is fewer than the population of Chicago.
When I think about my friends who are shockingly good at English, the people who not only understand the rules well but also the culture and could pass as a native speaker, at least over text, they are people who had a serious motivation to learn—like my friends from Lithuania who grew up on English-only games, like RuneScape, as kids and needed to have some ability to speak if they wanted to play.
If anything, I’m less surprised that English speakers tend to be so not-fluent than I am that Chinese speakers are as “fluent” as they are.
I’m not sure about what takes its place, sports?