i suspect the reason for the focus on languages was a desire to show that humanity never achieved unity in that way. just as it did not achieve unity in any other way. and that the departure from earth was in no way a mono-cultural affair. many groups left as separate groups. also with the easy availability of more than adequate (but less than perfect) translation software managed by your muse there is very little need for a common language so it is far less likely to develop. take the modern spread of English. i went on holiday to Sweden and met only 1 person who i could not talk to in English. my sister studied engineering in Germany using English language text books. only the least developed nations do not teach there students English, because it doesn't matter where you go in the world, to trade or to do science, they will probably speak English. when a French retailer selling a Japanese product orders more stock they probably do it in moderate quality English. if we all had access to real time audio translation we wouldn't bother learning another language just for trade. there is no practical difference between a Japanese person and a french person both learning good English or using a good, real time audio translation program. i believe that by the time of EP people will only learn additional languages for personal interest (as a hobby), or because they will have extended and detailed contact with speakers of that language and want to do better than the translation programers. meaning they will be going for very high skill levels, and probably a regional specialization.

My point of view exactly - the ubiquity of the Mesh and online translators probably made most people lazy enough to just stop learning other languages; on the other hand, the Fall lead people to learn more languages in order to preserve cultures that were almost completely destroyed by the TITAN outbreak. Both aspects can be used in role-playing in creative ways. Tantavalist uses Language skills as complementary skills which give a +10 - it's a very good reason to actually make characters learn more languages, and it enhances role-playing. I can only assume that an NPC hearing their almost-extinct mother tongue will display more favourable attitude towards the PC, which is always good. You also have to remember that the translation software is available ONLINE, i.e. it uses cloud-based resources/texts to translate speech and writing. Without the access to the Mesh, for example in a room constructed like a Faraday cage or when their communications were jammed (which is a simple Interfacing roll), the characters using different languages would be forced to rely on gestures and pantomime to communicate. Making the players role-play it would be extremely fun. Same goes for the NPCs - what happens when the players decide to jam the signal of a suspect in order to interrogate him, but the guy speaks only Bahasa Indonesian and won't understand their questions? Also, the attitude of the government toward languages might reflect their approach to the Fall in general - while the LLA may want to preserve the languages of the Indian subcontinent, and even promote their usage as an 'official language', the Planetary Consortium might force everyone to communicate in English and/or Mandarin, looking down on the 'authentics' who cling to the past instead of looking towards the bright future of transhumanity unified under one banner...a hypercorp one, that is. Also, since the access to the net is very limited in the Jovian Junta habitats, you might want to bring a dictionary/translation program with you if you don't speak Spanish or English, but an application like that probably won't be as efficient as its cloud-based counterpart. A simple slip of the tongue during an interrogation by a customs officer could cause more problems than you can think of.