In an article on BLOOMBERG, Maury Peiperl discusses why English should remain the lingua franca for doing business. Here are some excerpts:

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.

We can argue about the merits of the situation, but English already is the language of international commerce. This is not likely to change any time soon. The situation may not be optimal, especially if English is not your strongest language. I admit to having been astonishingly lucky in my choice of birthplace, but using English makes sense. (…)

Although it may be as painful at times to native speakers as it is challenging to nonspeakers, the simple international version of English (usually) works. It has no apostrophes, limited punctuation, interchangeable homophone spellings, an extremely limited vocabulary that’s often misused, little color, and less feeling. It’s serviceable and essential.

Even as a kind of lowest common denominator, the English of international business marks a further step forward in a global cultural evolution that has been picking up pace along with cross-border flows of goods, money, and information over the last few decades. For nearly all global enterprises, wherever they are based—and even for tourists, wherever they go—English is the language of international contact. It may be a crude way to bring the business world together, but it’s a start. Read full article.