Global Corporate English: Today’s Latin? And How AI is Reinforcing It
- adamraelson
- Dec 23, 2025
- 4 min read
Some of us grew up speaking Czech, French, Hindi, Cantonese... Others grew up with English: Essex, New York City, Singaporean, or one of the countless other dialects. Each carries its own rhythm, humor, values, and identity.
Yet, when the first day of the workweek arrives and we open our laptops, something remarkable happens: we switch.
Suddenly, our emails, press releases, LinkedIn posts, and leadership statements are written in a very specific kind of language, and one that no one actually “speaks” with their friend”: Global “Corporate” English.
A Language No One Speaks, But Everyone Is Expected to Master
Global Corporate English is not anyone’s mother tongue (nor is anyone’s “favorite” language). It is constructed to be carefully neutral, professionally polished, globally legible, and culturally flattened.
It is the English of:
"I hope you’re well.”
“Please find attached"
"Moving forward"
"Aligned on next steps"
"Driving impact"
“Let’s circle back”
"As discussed"
“EMEA”, “APAC”, “MENA”
No one talks like this at home. No one orders coffee in it. But in global organizations, whether we like it or hate it, fluency in it is power.
When we write it well, we are seen as credible, intelligent, senior, and globally competent.
When Professional Fluency Becomes Personal Insecurity
Over time, something subtler happens. Because we spend so much of our working lives performing in this linguistic style, we begin to internalize it as a measure of our intelligence and worth. Many highly proficient professionals, especially those working in international environments, start to question themselves outside of work.
When we speak more casually with friends, or revert to our native language, or slip into a regional dialect, a quiet doubt can creep in:
Am I sounding incompetent now?
Will they ever know how good I really am?
Will they still take me seriously?
This is one of the great paradoxes of Global Corporate English: it promises neutrality and inclusion, yet often produces self-surveillance, insecurity, and native linguistic self-erasure.
But oh, how refreshing it feels to step out of it! To be fully ourselves again. To joke, use contractions, curse, use grammar incorrectly and exaggerate our accents. To think faster than we translate. To reclaim the richness of our native languages and dialects that actually carry our cultural identities.
Is Global Corporate English Today’s Latin?
In medieval Europe, Latin functioned in a strikingly similar way as a shared professional language that rose above local tongues.
Latin was the language of:
Administration and law
Academia and science
The Church
Diplomacy and scholarship
Like Global Corporate English today, Latin was:
No longer spoken as a native language
Learned through education, exposure into a new trade, not upbringing
A marker of elite status and intellectual authority
Largely inaccessible to the general population (How many of us today can explain our jobs to our parents or grandparents without using Global Corporate English terminology?!)
Fluency in Latin granted access to power, knowledge, and social mobility. Those who mastered it could move across borders and institutions. Those who could not were excluded from formal discourse.
Over time, however, Latin’s dominance weakened. As nation-states consolidated and reading became more accessible, locally spoken languages gained legitimacy. French, English, German, Italian, and other European languages started replacing Latin’s monopoly in professional circles.
AI, Expat Culture, and Globalization is Reinforcing Global Corporate English’s Status
Today, Global Corporate English faces a new force: AI.
LLMs such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and others are overwhelmingly trained on corporate documentation, academic writing, professional media, and global/Western expat communication norms.
Multiple studies now point out that AI language systems disproportionately reflect global expat culture, which itself is shaped by Western (particularly Anglo-American worldviews). Silicon Valley, U.S. tech culture, and English-speaking professional norms form the underlying basis of these LLMs.
As more of humanity is starting to use AI, AI is reinforcing the standarization of Global Corporate English.
It dilutes regional voices and optimizes for professional distance. In doing so, it’s pushing all users toward a standardized way of sounding “competent”.
(For more on this, see our articles on Global Expat Culture and The Culture of AI.)
Will Global Corporate English Strengthen or Decline?
Will Global Corporate English continue to grow stronger, further enforced by AI-powered tools? Or will the bubble burst?
Already, we are noticing signs of resistance:
Leaders choosing more personal, imperfect language
Organizations embracing multilingual communication
Employees reclaiming regional accents and dialects
“Rebellious” brands opting for more raw, brash tones of voice are gaining traction
A growing skepticism toward over-polished, AI-sounding text
People rewriting AI text to specifically not sound AI (like removing “em” dashes)
Just as Latin eventually gave way to vernaculars, we may be entering a period where authentic, human “anti-AI” voices will regain their value in professional settings.
Reclaiming Our Linguistic Humanity at Work
Language, like culture, is dynamic and reinvents itself. The question is not whether a shared professional language is “good” or “bad,” but whether we are conscious of how it shapes who gets heard, who feels confident, and whose voice feels legitimate. As AI increasingly influences how we write, think, and present ourselves at work, linguistic choices are no longer neutral. They are cultural decisions.
At CultureComms Consulting, we work precisely at this intersection: between global business realities and human cultural expression. Our role is not to resist change, nor to blindly adopt it, but to help organizations navigate it consciously, ethically, and still remain human within it.
Comments