Surprisingly enough, Henry Paul and I had never met face to face. He had been described to me as a man of culture, but the person that I met is completely up to date with Romanian economic affairs. Of course, I talked to him about the constant efforts made by Pentalog in teaching French to its employees, like I always do when I meet a representative of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In all our offices, we provide constant foreign language training, French being the main language taught. 80% of Pentalog employees speak fluent French. In Romania, this figure rises to 90%, making Pentalog the most dedicated company in this respect, all sectors combined.

Being particularly sensitive, as an ambassador, to the language question, Mr. Paul showed me the connection between the language of a company and its identity, reminding me that, at a time of crisis, the most resilient companies are the ones with the strongest company culture. The recent Pentastock festival, celebrating 5 years of Pentalog Moldova and 10 years of Pentalog Romania, has made a deep impression on people in this regard.

He asked me what I thought about the importance of the French language in asserting the culture of Pentalog. I had never asked myself that question. Then, after reflecting on the matter a little more, I attempted an answer. We are an international company which was founded in France. It is, therefore, a French company, and French is the language of all management bodies. Encouraging and supporting its development is not only a commercial imperative, but also a true question of management. French is a political and diplomatic language; it doesn’t simply express our decisions, it “envisages” them and projects a larger meaning in minds. Is this far-fetched? Is it a discourse serving the French interest?

The answer is no. Not having a filter or linguistic intermediary between management decisions and the people to whom they are addressed or those who must apply them helps to build a common culture… Translation doesn’t convey the whole meaning. Isn’t this blog, where each article is first written in French, another expression of this company culture? Would it be the same if we wrote articles in English first? You will not be surprised to find out that the second country in terms of the number of people reading the French blog… is Romania

In order to prepare for this article, I asked my Romanian friends and colleagues a few questions. For them, Pentalog is probably a more international company than its local competitors. Using Molière’s language is enriching for the entire management system, which thus necessarily becomes multilingual. This choice of not having to use English as an official language determines us to speak several languages. Considering the hundred collaborators who don’t speak French and the nature of our events and meetings, we regularly use English and Romanian internally, as well as German, including in meetings with French people. I have just seen Eric passionately hold a meeting in Romanian (Romanian can only be spoken passionately). We do not use Vietnamese and Russian for professional communication, even though they are spoken by numerous employees in our company. Moreover, some of our collaborators also speak Hungarian, Hebrew, Ukrainian etc.

A company which speaks ONLY English is naturally not multilingual and will not be able to easily adapt to new markets and their cultures. I doubt that it will naturally be more open than a company which has chosen to keep its original language and to recognize the languages of the national and ethnic groups that it consists of and to which it targets its production.

Therefore, I will answer unhesitatingly to Mr. Paul’s statement. He is right. Preserving and developing the original language of a company strongly contributes to asserting the company identity in a business world which would like to speak only English. This becomes an essential distinctive symbol among everybody. This desire of the business world doesn’t lead to efficiency. It is too simplistic and doesn’t broaden people’s minds… which is what the business world and the international stage need the most.

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