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The Economics of Language
Starting in the late 1800s, the United States, predominantly English speaking, began its lengthy run as holding the world's strongest economy. China moved further and further down the list as time went on-until recently. As of late (the last decade), China's economy has gotten back on track. Last year, China's GDP was more than half that of the US; up from only 10% ten years ago. This is most likely due to the fact that China is coming out of its linguistic shell and taking a more analytic approach to foreign language solutions. China's State Commission for Administration of Standardization recently set in motion the country's first set of translation quality standards. These standards, drafted by the Translators Association of China, the China Translation and Publishing Corporation, and several other organizations, are designed to regulate language services in the interest of clients. Such a step indicates that China is opening up to the outside world as they acknowledge this steadily growing global industry. The Language Service Provider (LSP) industry in China is estimated at $3.5 billion a year and is on track to exceed twice that in the near future.
Meanwhile, for the world's third most commonly spoken language, Spanish, it's difficult to quantify LSP economics. This is because of how spread out the Spanish language has become. Referred to as the Hispanosphere, an estimated combined total of native and non-native Spanish speakers make up approximately 350 million people worldwide. It is the official language of Spain, most Latin American countries, and Equatorial Guinea. About 20 countries consider Spanish their primary language. Taking all of this into consideration, and the fact that Spanish is the second most-widely spoken language in the United States, one would have to assume that people who speak Spanish make up a significant portion of the world's entire GDP.
So, looking at the larger picture, one could argue that between all of the Chinese, English, and Spanish speakers of the world, the global economy relies heavily on these three forms of communication to survive and grow. Now, obviously, Chinese, English, and Spanish languages have co-existed for thousands of years, and aren't going away anytime soon. Therefore, translation and interpretation services have been, and always will be, central to the global economy's greater good. That's where companies like Translators, Inc. come into play. Certified linguistic specialists are capable of bridging the communicative gaps between the powerhouses of the world as well as individual business people just trying to get their piece of a very large pie. Without translation, there would be no global market place. | Back
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