Underpinning this is a belief that "those that can speak the language are going to have a leg up," Ackley said. The council is now updating a survey of foreign language enrollments in K-12, the first since 2000, and Ackley expects it to confirm its anecdotal reports of rising enrollments.

Foreign language enrollments at U.S. colleges and universities in the U.S. have increased. In 1998, there were 1,151,000 students enrolled in a language course in a survey of some 2,800 institutions by the Modern Language Association in New York. By 2006, the last , that number had increased to 1.522 million, or more than 32%.

But much of that gain is due to increasing colleges enrollments overall, from 14.5 million in 1998 to 17.64 million in 2006. There was nonetheless a gain in course enrollments over that period, from 7.9 students per 100 to 8.6. This enrollment survey is being updated this fall.

A long list of reasons why someone wouldn't want to take a job overseas is there, but a major one may be salaries. Overseas wages in India and many other low wage nations are just a fraction of U.S. wages, particularly at the low end. But for senior level positions the gap is narrowing, says Murthy, and as that gap narrows, the migration is picking up. "I think it's starting at the senior level," he said.

Murthy said he believes wage rates globally will move closer but other forms compensation independent of salaries, such as profit sharing, will play a larger role in making overseas work attractive.