Which foreign language will be most valuable in the next 20 years?

[Abu Suleyman]

I would think that most Chinese companies that do business in the Middle East will use English as a common language.

Perhaps, although insofar as English, Arabic, and Chinese are all from different language families, there is no advantage to any particular pairing. Nonetheless, it would be a true sign of America and Britains waining power if the Arabs started to learn more Chinese. (However, the ubiquity of Roman script and the opacity of Chinese characters do offer a barrier to such a transition.)

[Eden]

If the armed forces followed Harry Flashman's advice on learning foreign languages as a formal training regimen, we would never have to worry about fluency wherever we were sent

[George L. Singleton]

In the near term, I'm a fan of Arabic, Somali, and Urdu. In the long term, Mandarin.

Folks in Pakistan and India who speak Urdu as a rule also speak English. My experinece when stationed in Pakistan, while ancient, 1963-1965, was then, and I suspect based on friendship still in Karachi and among overseas Pakistanis here where we live in the States is that English works fine. "Against putting time into Urdu." My personal comment/opinion here. English is the defacto language of all of Pakistan and is required in all public schools in Pakistan.

Arabic, standard or otherwise, is clearly important for the forseeable future, until or unless the world runs out of oil.

Somali or French there? I'd think either or but would be lazy and go for the French if up to me individually.

Mandarin among 400 or so Chinese dialects...our children, now grown in their mid-20s, have friends who majored in "Chinese" at Vanderbilt, then did a year contract work for IBM inside China.

Another old friend, now deceased, was ultimately the US Ambassador to the EU, but was detailed to China to learn Mandarin Chinese at State Dept. expense, for one year, then returned to his European posting...being able to somewhat deal with most Europeans (he was already multi-lingual in Western languages) and then Chinese Mandarain as part of commercial dialogue. **He formerly had been Deputy US Trade Negotiator under both Presidents Carter and Reagan, made full Ambassador in his European job under Reagan...non-partisan careerist.

My life long friend the late US Ambassador to NATO, Robin Beard from Nashville, Tennessee brushed up his Vanderbilt French major at a DC area DoD/State Language Institute and did well with French dealing with all NATO Member Nations.

Just some random observations.