English Means Business

The international language—the lingua franca for doing business—should continue to be English. Pro or con?

International companies and international commerce generally imply a fundamental need for people to communicate across the globe, at least at a basic verbal and written level. Translation and multilingual communication are important, but unless there is one common language that everyone doing global business can speak, the complexity makes it unwieldy for cross-border businesses to function. Multilingual companies, as well those that use something other than the de facto global language, will always find it difficult to compete with—and will incur higher transactions costs than—those that use a single cross-border language.

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