"Poor literacy skills do not neccessarily dilute the cultural aspects."?!?! If the English suddenly stopped reading English and switched to Russian, are you seriously suggesting this would not erode or dilute English culture? Yep, Shakespeare reads as well in Russian as it does in English--same with Byron, Chaucer, John Stuart Mill, Austen, Milton, Adam Smith, etc. etc. I love reading Satre in English; it makes so much more sense to me when it has been massacred (sorry, 'translated') from the French.