A former British minister has pronounced French a “useless” language. So what exactly makes a language “useful?”

In a highly publicized and controversial statement, a former British Foreign Office minister called French “useless.” In mid-June, Chris Bryant started speaking about French to Members of Parliament in these terms: "Unless we have sufficient numbers of people who speak modern foreign languages – and not just the useless modern foreign languages like French ..."

Of course, outrage ensued. But Bryant maintained his position, arguing that the British should be studying more Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic – and making a not-so-plausible claim that the French “realize there are problems.”

This controversy led me to reflect about what makes a language useful. Logically, a language is useful if it can be put to good use. Britons travel in France in astonishing numbers – 15 million of them visited the country in 2007. I would imagine that French can be useful for these people, as well as those who deal with the many French tourists who come to Great Britain.

If one looks at sheer numbers of native speakers, however, of course the languages Bryant cited can appear more “useful,” but their potential future use depends on students’ career paths.

Overall, it may be easy to make far-flung statements about which languages will be of most use in a global economy, but it is not so simple for individual students to know which languages will serve them in their future.

At Language Translation, Inc. in San Diego, we know that the most useful language is the one your company needs to do business in! That’s why we offer quality translation and interpretation services in over 40 languages. “We speak your language – and theirs.”

Betty Carlson

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• Language Translation, Inc.
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