I beg to differ. For young people on the continent, the main sources for English may very well be American telly, gangsta rap, and l33tsp33k on the web. U go figger.
Do you think this only happens with the English language? I don't know what's wrong with young people in the world of today, but their knowledge of their own native language seems to be on an all time low. I know it's wrong to generalize like this: There are still quite a few youngsters taking pride in knowing their language, but the tendency is obvious. People don't care...
I read several Dutch speaking websites and forums (Dutch is my native language) and each day I find myself horrified by the raping of our language. It's not only the SMS, MSN, 1337 h4x0r, whatever... style they practice, but the fact they just don't know the correct spelling and grammar. If a word somewhat looks like how it's pronounced, it's fine for them.
Ok, there are parts in the world where education isn't a common thing as it is for us, but these people all have/had good education. I'm not saying punctuation, spelling and grammar errors should not be tolerated - everyone makes mistakes and it's not a big deal. But the things I read today are way beyond what one could call an occasional error. When you speak these people about their language, the standard reply is either they have a form of dyslexia or something in the way of "who cares". I never knew laziness is also a form of dislexia...