Is french the language of the future?

When you think of common languages of the world, French is not one of the first that comes to mind. There’s a good reason for that. French is the sixth most common spoken language in the world. It only takes a backseat to English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, and Arabic.

Now, new reports have a few eyebrows raised. According to a study by investment bank Natixis, more people will speak French by 2050 than any other language.

Today, 220 million speak French. The study determined that by 2050, an estimated 750 million people will speak French globally.

The rise in numbers is shocking given its current position in the global language rankings. Without a doubt, English holds the spot as the top language spoken around the world. For a long time many have considered Mandarin Chinese as a fast up-and-comer because of China’s strong position in the global economy.

Although a seeming unlikely threat, French has one strong weapon in its arsenal to take back its spot as the lingua franca of the 21st century: the large colonies with growing French speaking populations around the world are set to explode over the coming decades.

The proof is in the numbers.

Here’s a breakdown with proof of why and how French is gearing up to take over linguistically:

• French remains spoken in large former French colonies including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and 28 other countries around the world.

• The nations where French holds a top linguistic spot are some of the fastest-growing countries in the world.

• Many African nations have French as the official language used in schools.

• Countries such as Mali, Guinea, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have increasingly high fertility rates. This will add more children to the schools in coming years. These children will learn French.

• The dramatic population increase in these nations could boost the French speaking population from 3% to 8% by 2050.

To make matters more interesting, the countries with dominant languages of English and Mandarin Chinese expect a decline in population over the next few decades. English speakers could drop from 8% to 3% of the world’s population. Mandarin Chinese speakers could drop from 10% to 8%.

The math adds up. More children learning French, and fewer children speaking English and Chinese makes it easy for Francophiles to take over the world.

How should your business respond?

While this might seem like your business needs to start making plans for this dramatic shift, you might want to take a step back first.

Although having a French translation of your business materials is important, many analysts predict that the estimations in the study were a bit overzealous. Many of the countries listed as “French speakers” are not limited to French as the only official language. For example, Belgium and some African nations named in the study have more than one official language. The study does not take into account the coexistence of these languages.

Another important consideration is what size of the official population can read and write in French. In Algeria, for example, only a third of the population writes in French.

It’s true that French remains one of the top spoken languages of the world. Still, the likelihood that it will take over and dominate the global economy is not as high as the study would initially like you to believe. As a global business, it is important to stay vigilant of these global changes, but you might not want to put away the Chinese lesson books quite yet.

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