why so many languages

wouldn't it be better if there was only one language like c++ or c#
then programmers could spend their time mastering that language
instead of re-learning the basics of another language every few years

>>19
ALGOL precedes COBOL and is what influenced most languages of today:
ALGOL (short for ALGOrithmic Language)[1] is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in the mid 1950s which greatly influenced many other languages and became the de facto way algorithms were described in textbooks and academic works for almost the next 30 years[2]. It was designed to avoid some of the perceived problems with FORTRAN and eventually gave rise to many other programming languages (including BCPL, B , C and Pascal). ALGOL introduced code blocks and was the first language to use begin end pairs for delimiting them. Fragments of ALGOL-like syntax are sometimes still used as a notation for algorithms, so-called Pidgin Algol.