The future languages of international business: A European perspective

Abstract

Objectives

The main objectives of this study were to define which factors affect the relevance of a language the most, and utilize them in solving the research questions, to find out what are the most important languages in international business now and in the future, and to examine criteria, and create a tentative scoring system for evaluating the relevant importance of individual languages for IB.

Summary

First, the factors that affect the relevance of a language the most were picked and analyzed with the present and the future in mind. Then, the factors were combined into one entity by creating and utilizing a weighted points-system. The points-system was utilized twice, once to create a top ten list of current business languages, and once to create a similar list of future business languages. Finally, conclusions were drawn based on the differences between the two lists.

Conclusions

English is the number one international business language and it will maintain that status in the future. Mandarin Chinese might not become as big of a language as it was projected to be due to many reasons, such as China's reduced attractiveness as a place to do business in and the language's notorious difficulty. The future of many European languages is still unclear. If one were to start learning a language purely for business purposes, learning a language of the emerging markets, such as Spanish (for Latin America), Hindi or even Indonesian would be a wise choice.