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I do not think that in the U.S. universities the Japanese language had ever 
been included in a group of core required languages in the (post)graduate 
course of economics. In the 1950s, thanks to the Fulbright scholarship 
program and GALIOA fund (the predecessor of the Fulbright in academic 
field), dozens of Japanese students were sent to the U.S. universities. The 
Japanese economics students studying at Harvard, MIT, Chicago, etc. had to 
study French and/or German, math and statistics based on their English as a 
second language.  
 
They had a hard time and some of them became ill. But they brought the 
American economic language and empirical studies back to Japanese 
universities. (Probably the students were allowed to choose other languages 
than French or German, the Japanese thought that the other languages were 
less useful in the study of contemporary economics than German or French.) 
 
On the other hand, in the 1950s-60s, the (young) Japanese visiting 
researchers who joined the so-called Arrow's project (on mathematical 
economics) at Stanford did not have to agonize with their third or fourth 
languages in the U. S. (although many of them studied two foreign languages 
in Japanese universities). The Japanese scholars who joined Arrow's project 
were Hukukane Nikaido, Takashi Negishi, Hirofumi Uzawa, etc. 
 
I have heard that during the period from the 1950s to 1970s (or 1960s) many 
U.S. universities dropped the language requirements in the (post)graduate 
course of economics (and sociology, maybe) and since then the number and 
ratio of non-European students has been dramatically increased.  I would 
argue that the U.S. universities have been internationalized and secured 
the international competitiveness in (post)graduate education of economics 
because they decided to substitute (human) languages with math and 
statistics. 
 
The Japanese, living in Japan, are now under pressure of a more intensive 
use of English in economic and political life from ASEAN (Association of 
South East Asian Nations) members--Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, 
Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and VietNam. 
They have chosen English as one of the official languages. Since around 
1998, they have been more integrated and persuading their neighboring 
countries for both economic internationalization and political 
communications than before in order to get out of the economic troubles 
caused by the Asian financial-economic crash of 1997. (The nearest 
English-speaking country to ASEAN is Australia.) 
 
Let me return to math and English in economics. Math is required at some 
degree to become an economist because since the mid 20th century the 
mainstream economics (neoclassical economics) has changed its shape by the 
use of various type of mathematics and removed any nationality from itself. 
 English is required for economists to communicate with each other at the 
international level because U.S. universities made the (first) rational 
choice to substitute 'foreign' languages with math and statistics, and 
attracted many international scholars and students from outside. (The 
migration of intelligentsia from Central Europe to American Continents in 
the 1930s had a major impact on the U.S. academia in the following period.) 
I still believe that it is an adviser's role for his/her students to expand 
their choice set for the rest of their life. 
 
Aiko Ikeo 
 
 
 
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