A recent report, commissioned by the British Council, and prepared by Teresa Tinsley and Kathryn Board of Alcantara Communications, highlights which languages the UK needs most for the future, and why.
There are few people who would deny that the UK needs more of its people to speak other languages; for trade, multiculturalism, employability, and our economy, yet our school children often lag behind their European and worldwide counterparts.
And while many people around the world might speak English as a second, or even third language, our need to interact effectively and accurately with others around the globe relies upon our ability to connect with them at a fundamental level – language.
Multilingualism is becoming the norm, and in the UK, we must accept that “speaking English alone is not enough”.
Here we take a closer look at some of the key points of the report and which languages it considers are likely to be essential in the UK for the future…
The report
The report states that it is a “widely held” view that the UK lacks the necessary language skills for the future so its purpose is to provide a “strategic analysis of the UK’s long-term language needs, looking at a variety of economic, geopolitical, cultural and educational indicators and scoring different languages against these”.
The indicators used to inform the report are:
1. Current UK export trade
2. The language needs of UK business
3. UK government trade priorities
4. Emerging high growth markets
5. Diplomatic and security priorities
6. The public’s language interests
7. Outward visitor destinations
8. UK government’s International Education Strategy priorities
9. Levels of English proficiency in other countries
10. The prevalence of different languages on the internet
The results
These indicators, and the subsequent analysis (including cultural, economic and educational factors) yielded a list of ten languages which the authors of the report believe to be the most important for the UK’s future.
They are as follows:
1. Spanish
2. Arabic
3. French
4. Mandarin Chinese
5. German
6. Portuguese
7. Italian
8. Russian
9. Turkish
10. Japanese
A survey commissioned by the British Council for the report suggests that three quarters of the UK public are unable to speak any of these languages well enough to hold a conversation.
Highlights and takeaways from the report
One important point raised by the report links to David Graddol’s 2006 analysis of global language trends which offered a “timely warning” against complacency regarding the predominance of the English language worldwide.
His prediction suggests that the competitive advantage of English will ebb and there is a risk that monolingual English speakers will face “a bleak economic future” if they are unable to “tap into the multilingual environments enjoyed by others.
Interestingly, the report also suggests that a wide range of languages are needed to “exploit the benefits of the single market and keep improving trade between peoples worldwide.”
It goes on to state that in order to “develop relations between countries and individuals based on mutual respect and trust as well as to do business effectively, there is a need for an understanding of the social, political, and technical systems of a country, as well as the innumerable aspects of daily life that are important to that nation’s identity and culture”.
In other words, it isn’t just an understanding of language that is relevant for successful interactions between people around the globe, there must also be an understanding of different cultures and identities.
The report also highlighted changes in ranking of economies with the largest GDP from 2010 to 2020 which suggests that the growing importance of emerging economies “will have implications for global influence, consumption, investment and the environment”.
Whether English remains the lingua franca is a question which will only be answered with the passing of time, however, it is obviously becoming more vital that UK considers the importance of other languages both in the UK and overseas.
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