I think the whole treatment of languages in both D&D 3.5E and in the Pathfinder RPG was/is rather bad.
Many styles of play require easy communication between characters and the various peoples and races in the fantasy world, or else the game would bog down. There is no need to make learning languages quite so easy, however, as there already is a solution to communication problems. This solution is called "Common" - the English language or Lingua Franca or Latin of the D&D/Pathfinder fantasy world that is understood and spoken by basically everybody. If the DM does not want a communication problem, the interlocutors can always speak common with each other. I have, however, used language issues in my campaigns before to good effect.
Since the communication problem for groups that don't want it is already solved, there is no need to make learning languages so easy and cheap. I would, therefore, propose that learning a new language should be a feat rather than the investment of a few skill points. Wizard bonus feats would qualify for this.
There is, however, another problem languages suffer - spells. Spells such as "Comprehend Languages" or "Tongues" basically completely devalue any investment in language learning. Had I not nerfed them to public/living languages only, even my secret languages and my ancient languages would have been useless. In some cases I wanted the characters/players to crack these through adventures and problem-solving, or I wanted the meaning to be something unclear or something that the PCs can only partially piece together from similarities with languages they know. Though that is for the spells forum, I would say that these spells need to be nerfed to exclude secret and ancient languages (that are no longer spoken). In fact, it might be best if each of those spells either only applied to one language (chosen when the player is learning the spell) or only to a list of languages listed under the description of the spell (or perhaps the basic languages of 3.5E - Elven, Dwarven, Common, Goblin, etc., but not any additional languages the DM has made up for the campaign world).
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NO
1) still while very proliferated English is still not lingua franca in the world and you can find pretty much places where they don't know how to speak it
damn not every person in my country speak spanish and its the oficial language
and when there is a "common" language, its more times than not a commercial in its nature, mostly a trading language... for example go to any turistic place in the world where people from USA go... there would be a lot of people speaking english... specially in nice places... the rest of the town only those forced (by economical issue... like attending a shop or a restaurant) would know a bit of the language, mostly to interact... the rest of the people won't know the language except for common words that already crossed and being adopted into our own language, as many words as your own language had adopted from ours.
Lets not talk about the rest of the country... yeah strong economical nations might have a much higher percentage of people speaking english... but those are limited numbers.
Language infuse something interesting and kind of backgound in the game... but making it almost imposible to learn by forcing a language to become a feat is beyond calling... why? learning a language is an skill, and most people won't change the few feats they have (yes... 10 feats are fewfeats with so much awesome feats in the book and other book... damn there are hundreths of feats and most you can only think "damn it would be nice tohave this") to learn a language when you can be running a 60's movies where everyone including aliens speak "common"
Aside... lets see the example of eastern europe... there people know 3 or more languages... non of which surely is english when German is their "common", there are about a dozen contries, all of them with their oficial languages and a few more dialects... people there learn such languages by experiencing them every day
I agree... learning a language is not realistic in a fantasy game... you want it realistic... force your players to interact with the language... they can add points to linguistics... but they won't learn it unless they have direct experience with it...
think of "Eater of the Dead" with Antonio Banderas... his character the arab was unable to understand a word of what his companions said... but in the movie he learned by observing, by watching howthey speak and refered to things
in the book he learned a bit like that, but was never fluent and when he proved that he understood what they were saying his blond barbarian happy friend helped him learn by telling him how to call a lot of things.
the game ask for certain "dramatic disbelief" in which you believe wizards can throw fire from their hands, warrios can kill dragons with their swords and people can go and learn things without actually training... example
most of the feats should need profesional or actual training... but this is left for downtime or never thought at all... while there are some progresive feats that are "physical" or "instintive" why would a character learn suddenly Alertness and get +2 in perception or sense motive? or why would he learn Cleave if he just left the dungeon. he has not practiced it, no one has trained him, i understand he become betters swinging his sword, reducing damage to his body, becoming an expert with his weapon of choice... but why without formal trianing would he learn a technique teachers should keep as a secret?
all the "impoved" feats is about practice
but Whirl Wind is a Technique... who did train the character? how he discovered he could do that?
2nd Edition had an Optional answer... "Training" you don't get your class benefits unless you take 1 week to train your new skills and paid a formal trainer... why you should sudenly become good at combat if you just killed a few goblins?
"dramatic disbelief" (i might be wrong in the term) either you apply it to everything... or at least as much as can be done... or go realistic in everything...
other thing is hypocricy