I am close to one hundred years old... Well, I'm anyhow closer to 100 than to 200 years old.
And yet I have so far never met any single person who speaks more than one language. Sure, I have met thousands of people who speak one language, and who in addition have the ability to order a pint of beer or discuss nuclear physics in one or several more languages. However, I have never met anyone who has been able to completely assimilate two cultures. Who not only speaks grammatically correctly and without an accent, but who also senses all the subtleties of another culture. Someone who knows the children television shows of his generation in another country, who remembers the thrilling final in the national football league, when he was seven years old, and who knows which food was served at children's parties when he was a child.
A language is as complicated as human brains can manage. We tend to fill language up to the brink with complications and information, so it is as rich a tool as possible. Euphuistic expressions are abundant, even though there always are a few people who don't understand them. That is the reason no one speaks two languages perfectly. The brain is a chalice which perfectly fits one language - there is no room for two perfect languages. However, luckily there is plenty of room in the cupholder to add large chunks of a bunch of other languages as well.
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