Android :: Extending Soft Keyboard With Language Switching Support?

I just got my HTC Desire with Android 2.1, and the first problem I'm running into a lot is when using the visual keyboard. Being multilingual and having friends who only speak one particular language, there's no single 'correct' input language setting for the word prediction feature, so I started looking into how much work it might be to extend the keyboard with two rather basic, though essential, features:

1) Showing the current language selection, so that I don't have to type stuff, getting it mis-corrected, then discover the language setting must be wrong, go into the settings, select to change language, select language, etc. until I get back, erase the old text and start over. That gets old real quick.

2) Being able to simple change whatever language is used for the word prediction by just having a button on the keyboard doing that directly, i.e. a button that just cycles through the 'relevant' languages with the key label showing which is currently active. Improving it even further, one might imagine:

3) Having a per contact setting, noting the word-prediction language that should be used when communicating with that user. But searching through the docs, I'm slowly coming to the realization that the input text language setting may not even be available to be changed outside the system settings dialog, making this impossible to implement - is that correct?