Every so often someone suggests, sometimes in jest and some times in all seriousness, that programming languages “count” as a language for meeting graduation or degree requirements. According to Ian Bogost, who is not happy about it, some schools are actually doing this and others are close to it. (Computers are Systems, not Languages)
Is this a good idea? I think it largely depends on what you see as the value in learning a language other than your own native language. As someone who struggled his whole academic career with languages (first year French twice, First year German three times) I’m not so sure that language learning the way we do it in US is much good. Very few really become fluent enough to have more than the most casual of conversations (any one have evidence to the contrary?) One reason I often heard for learning a foreign language (the politically correct term is world language I think) is that it gives one a better understanding of the culture of the countries where it is spoken. I guess that is true to some extent. Although with our “flat world” is it as necessary as it was a generation or two ago? Arguable. Isn’t the world of computers a culture though? Perhaps learning to program helps people, especially in the humanities, some insights into that “other” culture?
Another reason I have heard is so that one can read research and other works in the original language. Perhaps that made a lot of sense when French and German were the principal languages of some areas of study. But today people write in far too many languages to make focusing on one make for a solid argument – well unless that language is English. An awful lot is written first in English even by people whose first language is not English. On the other hand there may be some value in being able to read code in the “original” language. It’s a theory. And fortunately computer languages are often enough alike that learning one or two is enough to have a reading familiarity with others.
Does learning a different language help one understand their own language better? That seems a stronger argument than some others. There is no close corollary to this with programming languages with the possible exception of COBOL. 
So am I arguing that programming languages should take the place of natural languages as general education requirements. Not really. I’m sort of asking why we have learning natural languages as a requirement. Sacrilege of course but why not? I do think that more people should take some programing or other real computer science course though. It is part of being a fully educated person in the 21st century.
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