That’s just great. After years of bitching about the colonialism of language and reverting city names to their pre-British originals, South Asian countries are about to lose their economic advantage. Yes, Outer Mongolia is learning English:

Within a decade, Mongolia is expected to convert its written language to the Roman alphabet from Cyrillic characters… “If there is a shortcut to development, it is English; parents understand that, kids understand that…” In Chile, the government has embarked on a national program to teach English in all elementary and high schools. The goal is to make the nation of 15 million people bilingual within a generation. The models are the Netherlands and the Nordic nations, which have achieved proficiency in English since World War II…

Mongolia, which, suspiciously, rhymes with Elbonia, has big plans for the tech industry:

“If we combine our academic knowledge with the English language, we can do outsourcing here, just like Bangalore…”

As you may recall, Kemal Ataturk forcibly converted the Turkish language from Arabic to Roman script decades ago. Turkey has done relatively well and is hoping to join the European Union. So Mongolians are welcoming their new Hinglish overlords only:

Mr. Tsagaan… explained in English that Mongolia hoped to attract English teachers… from India, Singapore and Malaysia.

You know what this means: bookshelves packed with weepy Mongolian memoirs written from the barren hinterlands of SoHo. The book covers will be edged with sensuous yak skins, yurts and thick-lipped models. That hot new novelist from Ulan Bator will be munching canapes, showing up in Granta and getting shortlisted for the Booker.