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Should English be the official language? | ||
Tags: Language Politics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5729 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 1 of 96 24 April 2013 at 2:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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An interesting article from the Guardian with quite interesting comments from the readers.
Should English be the official language of the EU To be honest I never even thought about EU having one official language. It still strikes me as an odd idea. But apparently some disagree. Edited by pesahson on 24 April 2013 at 2:24pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 96 24 April 2013 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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No.
I believe there should be the three most important ones just as now: English, French and German, because there are approximately as many English natives as the French, German, Spanish, Italian or Polish ones (so, if we are even considering making a step away from the 23 officials, perhaps we should have 6 officials but no less than the three). Getting English as the official language doesn't make sense culturally, because the islands were always more different from the rest than continental countries between themselves. And it is a bad political symbol, we are already showing "we will blindly nod at anything the USA proposes" enough. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 96 24 April 2013 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well it's already the quasi-official language for business and science, and for most non-native English speakers, when they want to communicate in a language other than their native tongue.
I love how the Guardian is raising this at the same time as UK is considering leaving the EU. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4640 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 4 of 96 24 April 2013 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is a danger that this thread could rapidly become very political, so let us try to stick to the basic question, which to me is whether it is a good or a bad thing that an international organisation like the EU has a lot of official languages. In my point of view, the EU took a rather admirabely approach in the sense that whenever a new member state joined, its national/official language would also become an official language of the institution. One should also bear in mind that that EU creates legislation which is binding on the member states, and it would be pretty odd if Poland, Germany or Spain should submit to legislation in another language, e.g. English, so at least those texts would have to be translated in any case.
I work in a different international organisation, where we have just two official languages, English and French. However, German, Russian and Italian are working languages in certain situations, and we also translate some material, aimed at a broader public ("the man in the street") in a host of other languages, for example Armenian, Georgian, Estonian and Roma language, depending on the issue. My view, which is based on experience, is that an international organisation cannot function with only one official language (the UN has six), and in spite of all the difficulties, the cost and the occasional hiccup it creates, the EU model is in many ways more democratic than a monolingual alternative would be. (And for a language nerd like me, it is great fun to listen into the Babelian discussions in the European Parliament, although that is a weaker argument...) Edited by Ogrim on 24 April 2013 at 3:31pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 5 of 96 24 April 2013 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | ||
And I think that's only going to become more prevalent as more European universities move to English-only classes. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4255 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian | Message 6 of 96 24 April 2013 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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This move to English as a 'quasi-official' language actually makes me sad, because I really don't want to see languages die out in favor of English!
That being said, I don't think the EU should have anyone official language. Especially if a member of the EU speaks that language, because then (to me) it looks like you're giving that state the most power. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 96 24 April 2013 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
Don't worry there is always the chance the UK will leave the EU, in which case English would be more akin to Esperanto for the remaining member states! More seriously though, this is a completely theoretical discussion. There is absolutely no chance that France (or perhaps other countries in Europe) would ever allow English to be the sole official language of the EU. It's much more likely (albeit still very unlikely) that the USA will become officially bilingual with Spanish as the second language. Edited by patrickwilken on 24 April 2013 at 4:07pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5566 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 8 of 96 24 April 2013 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I very much doubt the UK will leave the EU. The call to leave is the standard thing that
happens during the end term of a feckless Tory government like the current one - an appeal to the right in the knowledge that the political centre won't allow it. As to English being the official language - I hope not - but every time I go to France, Germany or Switzerland I notice more and more adverts in English and more city and town centres being developed on the 'clone town' model so common in England. Which is always a shame. Edited by Elexi on 25 April 2013 at 1:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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