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Should English be the official language?

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
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schoenewaelder
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5561 days ago
759 posts - 1197 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch

 
 Message 17 of 96
24 April 2013 at 6:42pm | IP Logged 
The official language of the EU should rotate with the presidency. I can't think of a single more important thing the EU should be doing, than promoting all the constituent languages. (I am not, despite my regular presence here, some crazy language learning zealot. I think there are probably more useful things people could do with their time than language learning. But it should be a priority for the EU)

Edit: toned it down a bit

Edited by schoenewaelder on 24 April 2013 at 6:51pm
1 person has voted this message useful



Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7157 days ago
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20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 18 of 96
24 April 2013 at 7:12pm | IP Logged 
Ogrim wrote:
patrickwilken wrote:
daegga wrote:
Then he would be called a Nazi. Sad but true.


Is it possible not to have the Nazi's brought up in threads? It's gets really boring.


It just confirms Godwin's law


I wouldn't go so far to say that it's that simple a reduction to Godwin's law but daegga's observation about the unfortunate and uneasy link between a modern German's support for "Germanness" and Nazism reminds of similar sentiments made by my German teachers of long ago when we had lessons about German culture.

This checkered relationship between national (or cultural?) pride and Nazism has even been exploited in Scandinavia and the World



Humon wrote:
Some time ago I talked with a German girl about the use of flags in Germany. She told me that the only time it is seen as okay to be waving the German flag is at sport events and official buildings. The rest of the time the fear of feeling national pride is too big. It is in fact so bad that some Germans even feel uncomfortable when they see other countries waving it at hotels and the like.

In Scandinavia we use our flags completely different, but it’s not like in North America where you see flags everywhere as a sign of national pride.
Every time we have a celebration of any kind we raise the flags, because here our flags doesn’t so much symbolise national pride as much as it has become a symbol of happiness, joy and having a good time. And something I haven’t seen in other countries is that we use it when celebrating birthdays. So if you walk by a house here and see 20 small flags in the front yard, it’s not because the people living there are nationalists. It just means someone is celebrating their birthday.


Edited by Chung on 27 April 2013 at 5:53pm
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Mad Max
Tetraglot
Groupie
Spain
Joined 5052 days ago
79 posts - 146 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Russian
Studies: Arabic (classical)

 
 Message 19 of 96
24 April 2013 at 7:14pm | IP Logged 
patrickwilken wrote:
hrhenry wrote:
   
That'll never happen. Official language status is set at the state level, not federal.
Some states, for example, have declared English to be their official language, while
other states have no official language.
==


That's interesting. But how does it work at a federal level? Obama can't suddenly
switch official White House communications into Spanish, say, to annoy the hell out of
the Republicans can he? The thought does make me smile though...




The White House webpage is yet in Spanish and English.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/espanol

Other webpages, like the Government is also in Spanish and English.
http://www.usa.gov/gobiernousa/

By the way, Obama speaks very well Spanish. Anyway, the USA has not official language.
Another interesting fact is that the State Department of the United States speaks
Spanish sometimes. They offered for the first time in history a press conference in
Spanish completely in 2012.

Back to the topic, if the European Union reduces the number of official languages, they
should be at leat 6: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Polish.
At the United Nations, for instance, there are also 6 official languages: English,
French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian and Arabic.

3 persons have voted this message useful



casamata
Senior Member
Joined 4263 days ago
237 posts - 377 votes 
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 20 of 96
24 April 2013 at 7:30pm | IP Logged 
Mad Max wrote:
patrickwilken wrote:

The White House webpage is yet in Spanish and English.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/espanol

Other webpages, like the Government is also in Spanish and English.
http://www.usa.gov/gobiernousa/

By the way, Obama speaks very well Spanish. Anyway, the USA has not official language.
Another interesting fact is that the State Department of the United States speaks
Spanish sometimes. They offered for the first time in history a press conference in
Spanish completely in 2012.

Back to the topic, if the European Union reduces the number of official languages, they
should be at leat 6: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Polish.
At the United Nations, for instance, there are also 6 official languages: English,
French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian and Arabic.


It's pretty unlikely that Spanish will be an official language (federal) in the US. Just as hhenry mentioned, there is no current federal language but English is the defacto one. And this is coming from a big Spanish lover, too. It just won't happen. If you look at previous large immigrant groups like the Italians, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, everybody, after a few generations they don't speak much more than English.

I don't think Spanish will die out like the aforementioned languages due to it having reached a "critical mass" in border states as well as a strong network of Spanish radio, print, and news, however.

Obama doesn't speak a lick of Spanish. He can say, "sí se puede!" and he can read off an advertisement in Spanish with professional help, although he doesn't know what he is saying. He can say "hi" and "bye" in Spanish and Indonesian. To some people that means speaking a language, to others, not so much.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-502443_162-4254480-502443.html

Edited by casamata on 24 April 2013 at 7:34pm
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James29
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
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1265 posts - 2113 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French

 
 Message 21 of 96
24 April 2013 at 9:09pm | IP Logged 
Obama cannot speak Spanish at all. G W Bush cannot speak Spanish even though many people believe he can.   

I believe New Mexico already has Spanish as an official state language. Many cities have Spanish as an official language.


4 persons have voted this message useful



Tsopivo
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4472 days ago
258 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: Esperanto

 
 Message 22 of 96
24 April 2013 at 9:23pm | IP Logged 
I am strongly against having only one language in the EU institutions. I think it is important to value each language and to keep in mind that every country, every citizen and every language should be equal in Europe.

If a language was to be chosen, I think that Esperanto or any other easy to learn conlang would be a fairer choice.

Edited by Tsopivo on 24 April 2013 at 9:27pm
1 person has voted this message useful



Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7157 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 23 of 96
24 April 2013 at 10:01pm | IP Logged 
Tsopivo wrote:
I am strongly against having only one language in the EU institutions. I think it is important to value each language and to keep in mind that every country, every citizen and every language should be equal in Europe.


The problem with striving for equality of languages above all is how to reconcile how 23 languages are already elevated over others. These "others" include Basque, Catalan, Luxembourgish, Northern Saami, and Welsh from about 150 languages, and even within these "others", not all of them are equal. Basque, Catalan, Galician, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh are semi-official, whereas the remainder are at varying degrees of recognition or support. Another problem is that there's a related problem that not all EU members have signed and/or ratified the European Charter for Minority Languages (France and Italy haven't ratified the charter, whereas Belgium (a little odd in its capital being the EU's capital, n'est ce pas?), Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal, Ireland and the Baltic States have neither signed nor ratified the charter). On this second problem, I can understand at least partially why they're not fully (or at all) on board with that charter but again it's politics or something in constitutional law. It has nothing to do with the relevant languages' grammar, phonology, script or lexis).

All of the above is a gold mine for politicians, demagogues and lawyers, but that's it.

Tsopivo wrote:
If a language was to be chosen, I think that Esperanto or any other easy to learn conlang would be a fairer choice.


Esperanto or some conlang? You gotta be kidding ;-) If I could impose one official language on the entire EU, I'd make it Mongolian just to make those Eurocrats and those on their EU high-horses squirm. It's "un-European", and the Mongol hordes gave no quarter to the medieval Europeans (or any opponents for that matter) in their path, muah-ha-ha.
7 persons have voted this message useful



patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4534 days ago
1546 posts - 3200 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 24 of 96
24 April 2013 at 10:27pm | IP Logged 
The more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I am with any one of the European languages somehow being elevated above the others. It just works against the idea of the EU.

Thinking a bit outside the box: What about a dead language like Ancient Greek or Latin?




1 person has voted this message useful



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