English is the most preferred language for Indians: Ipsos Poll

A large majority (77%) Indian workers whose jobs require them to interact with people in foreign countries say that English is the dominant language of business, Hindi (15%) followed at a wide distance, according to a new poll by leading global research firm Ipsos.

 

"The most revealing aspect of this survey is how English has emerged as the default language for business in India, to be successful in the corporate world employees in India must have good command over English, which has become the official business language for corporate India," said Biswarup Banerjee, Head of Marketing Communication, Ipsos in India.

 

Although for more than seven in ten (73%) of those Indian employees who have interactions with people who live in other countries, the language they use most often for interactions is different from the one they learned as a child. Almost five in ten (46%) learned Hindi as a child followed by English (25%), Bengali (5%) among others.

 

More than one quarter of employees in 26 countries around the world told an Ipsos poll that their jobs involve dealing with people in other countries. And of those, two-thirds said that English is the language they use most often.

 

Workers in India, Singapore and Saudi Arabia were the most likely to say their jobs involved interacting with people in other countries, with 59%, 55%  and 50%  saying so, respectively.

 

But only 9% percent in Japan and 13 percent in Russia said their work required communication outside the country.

 

The survey of 16,344 employed adults in 26 countries showed that 67 percent or just over two-thirds, of workers who deal with people beyond their borders said English was the language used most often, with Spanish a very distant second at five percent. After Spanish are Mandarin (4%) and French (3%). Two percent of those surveyed say each of: German, Arabic, Hindi, Italian and Russian.

 

While more than three quarters of people in North America said they used English most often to communicate with those in other countries, 63 percent in China said the same thing. The same was true for France.

 

More than two thirds of workers in the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa also defaulted to English.

 

In Latin America only one-third said English was most common when dealing with people in other countries. In 22 of 26 countries surveyed, English is the dominant language. The only countries falling outside this trend are from Latin America – Argentina (53% say Spanish), Brazil (53% say Portugese), Mexico (46% say Spanish) – and Russia, where 48 percent say Russian.

 

The country where Mandarin is most commonly ranked as the top language is China (21%), though six in ten (63%) still say English is the main language they use. Similarly, French is most commonly used by 30% of employees in France and 28% of those in Belgium, though 62% of French and 56% of Belgian employees say English is their main language for speaking with those from other countries.

 

Nearly as many, 61 percent globally said the language used for such interactions was different from their native one.

 

The survey showed that people with higher levels of income or education were among the most likely to say English was most commonly used for foreign business relationships.

 

Gender and age had no bearing on the dominant language for conducting business.

 

Countries surveyed included Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America.