European democracy
#TheFutureIsYours Strengthening European democracy
A second official language in all EU Member States would be a good compromise between current linguistic fragmentation and imposing a common EU language that some people on this forum suggest.
This is more realistic and agreeable for the more conservative citizens while making a life for EU citizens living in a different Member State much easier until they learn the local language. Having one common official language would also foster communication between EU citizens from different parts of Europe, improve engagement in the national and European public affairs and help prevent misunderstandings.
English is a logical choice because almost everyone speaks it as their second language. Both French and German, while they have a lot of native speakers, are much less adopted. Therefore, English is the most practical and fair option.
Also, Brexit should not be an argument against using it. Rather, it has become almost a neutral language since it is not an official language of one of the biggest Member States anymore. While it is an official language used in Ireland and Malta, they have registered Irish and Maltese with the EU.
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No. We don't want English cultural imperialism in Europe (and I say this as a native speaker, by the way, i.e. I love the English language). On a more practical side: Many, if not all, countries in Europe would be dead against the wholesale adoption as English as a mandatory second language throughout the EU. Most countries in Europe have a history of struggling to retain their own native cultures and languages against the domination of a neighbouring language, and don't want to give up what they've only just managed to achieve. I live in Flanders, so trust me, I know. And if you don't believe me, then ask the Catalans and the Basques, or the Bretons, or the Flemish, or the Czechs, or the Polish, or the Lithuanians and Latvians, or the Irish and Welsh and Scottisch, and most of the rest of Europe, really ... Europe must NEVER give in to this kind of cultural colonism.
I am proposing this as a Czech national, not being a native speaker. It's not a matter of cultural imperialism; it's a matter of practicality. What do you suggest as an alternative? You could argue with cultural imperialism against using French or German as well, and creating some EU language or imposing something as Esperanto is outlandish.
Usually, if you want people coming from different backgrounds to understand each other, you use English. Just take students on Erasmus, for example, they all use English to communicate.
Pointless to argue about language praticality with a Flemish person. Almost everywhere in Europe trains and buses have announcements in multiple languages, but in Flanders and Wallonie, jamais! Either you know Dutch/French or literally, you can get lost!
And why is Belgium the way it is? Because of 200 years of Dutch being pushed out in favour of French; and (this you prob don't know) when Dutch was recognised as official, the Walloons were in favour of total language separation, rather than having a totally bilinual country, because they didn't like the idea that Dutch might become co-official in French speaking Belgium. Know your history, it explains a lot.
My point is this: You cannot just impose solutions without knowing the historical & cultural background, or else you'll just create more resistance to the European ideal, rather than less... Language practicality is important, but you would be shorsighted to ignore the fact that this is a matter of principles.
One more point though: Belgium is hardly the only country in Europe with issues like this. If you want to find a workable, practical solution for European language conflicts, you first need to know the cultural and historical background of the communities involved.
Very interesting, by now why both communities keep going on with this ridicolous language war, after decades and decades? And English, what it has to do with this? How would it be so outeageous if English was a common second official language in the whole od Belgium? Wouldn't it be useful for Belgians to have a lingua franca that they can use everywhere in the whole country and indeed in the whole EU?
Hi Ermanno, it's a long story. In short: This language war is still pretty recent history. For example: even now, there are still French-language politicians who want to annex Flemish towns into officially bilingual, but really French, Brussels ... And don't forget: This is a conflict that has been going on for about 2 centuries and people have long memories. It's naive to think you can solve it, just by imposing English. (Of course, nothing is quite as simple as all that in Belgium, as quite a few people are for instance bilingual, it's complicated :-) )
But in short: this struggle has made people so sensitive to language interference & cultural imperialism, that neither side would EVER be willing to give even an inch. Not every problem can be solved through purely practical methods. If that were true, it would've been easiest for the Flemish to abandon their language and totally Frenchify... but they didn't. Because some things are more imporant than mere practical solutions.
"Creating some EU language or imposing something as Esperanto is outlandish."
Well, the European Union IS outlandish !!! So having a official, outlandish language would make sense :,D
Funny yet apt :-) You could also ask youself the question: How willing are we to think outside the box? How creative can we get to fix this problem? After all: It has been done before ...
When the Jews needed a new language for their new Jewish state, some smart guy (Elizier Ben-Yehuda, to be specific, one of the world's great linguistic brains, I might add) resurrected the "dead" language Hebrew. And something similar happened to Hungarian, Estonian, Latvian, Czech, and more ...
All these peoples could have decided to just adopt the then dominant language, because it would've been easier ... but they chose to reaffirm their own national cultures & identities by reviving something that the rest of the world thought was dead and buried at the time.
Are we willing to try the same? Are we capable of doing the same? Or will we choose to accept the total domination of the English language, simply because it looks easier and doesn't require us using our brains?
Just a thought ... :-)
Alright, Latin is our new second language...
We don't need to create a new langage because this one is still existing : esperanto
http://www.linguistic-rights.org/robert-phillipson/Robert_Phillipson_about_European_Union_language_policy.html
love the idea of esperanto, or latin btw.
but first of all people will have to learn it, and by learning it, i mean expression to the full legal extent; that will take a long time and exclude a lot of people (young folks learn languages more swiftly). i think europe needs something tangible now.
next comes the fact that many people around the globe speak english already.
and after all, in what language do we debate here?
Pas besoin d'imposer quoi que ce soit dans les langues officielles des différentes nations, ça serait une horrible colonisation culturelle. Si les gens ont besoin d'utiliser l'anglais, ils l'utilisent et puis c'est tout.
I agree with Martin. Here we are discussing this topic in English. The machine translation is not advanced enough to replace the need for a common language. Despite the grammatical errors this in yet practically the best way to debate without interpreters.
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Diese Idee wäre ein weiterer wichtiger Schritt in Richtung "geeintes Europa". Jeder EU-Bürger kann ja weiterhin seine Muttersprache in seinem Heimatland sprechen, nur eben in den Ämtern der EU und dessen Institutionen wäre englisch dann als weitere Sprache anwendbar. Und da die meisten Menschen in Europa bzw. in der EU englisch sprechen oder zumindest mal gelernt haben, finde ich diese Idee durchaus vertretbar.
"Zumindest mal gelernt haben" das bedeutet wenige Leute können richtig auf english sich ausdrücken. Übrigens welches English?
Englishbeherrschung gehört wenige Leute, deswegen ist diese Sprache undemokratisch.
http://www.linguistic-rights.org/robert-phillipson/Robert_Phillipson_about_European_Union_language_policy.html
Die wenigsten können sich auch nach 8 oder 9 Jahren Englischunterricht in der Schule wirklich fließend und natürlich auf Englisch ausdrücken. Ganz zu schweigen von nuanciertem mündlichen und schriftlichen Ausdrucksvermögen. Englisch ist nun einmal eine schwierige Sprache (nur die ersten 10 Jahre lang scheint sie leicht erlernbar, witzelte mein Englischlehrer immer).
Man sollte überlegen, wie man den Fremdsprachenunterricht in Europa effizienter und erfolgreicher organisiert. In diesem Zusammenhang scheint mir dieser Vorschlag unterstützenswert: "The EU needs improved language learning" The EU needs improved language learning
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No, Most Europeans won't want to have another country's language as it's sole official language. It would be the simplest answer, yes definitely, it is not fair though. Yes, Ireland and Malta registered Irish and Maltese with the EU, they are de facto still English-speaking countries and they would have an advantage. The best option would be choosing a neutral language, like Esperanto.
I think you misunderstood my proposal. I am not suggesting English as the sole official language but as an additional second official language. No citizen would be forced to use it. This would be merely an option for those who want or need to use it.
To your second point, yes, they are indeed English speaking. But there would not be an advantage. I am not suggesting removing French and German from the EU procedural languages so that English becomes the sole one either. Instead, I am only talking about official languages in the Member States. For example, the Czech government would have to keep official information available in English (which, to an extent, it already does), and Dutch people coming to the Czech Republic would be able to use English in official communication.
The only ones being required to use English would be the state officials. And that is not an issue because (i) it is usually asked of them even now that they are proficient in English (ii) each department can designate a person (or several) responsible for communication in English.
Au début ça ne sera obligatoire que dans l'administration, mais petit à petit, les entreprises vont le demander pour les recrutements, les Universités vont le demander les admissions, les journaux vont écrire des versions anglaises de leurs articles. Au bout d'un moment, tout le monde parlera anglais dans le pays, puis les journaux se diront que traduire c'est embêtant alors autant n'écrire qu'en anglais, les Universités se diront qu'enseigner en tchèque n'a pas les valeurs internationales de l'anglais, elles l'abandonneront. Les lycées suivront le mouvement, puis l'administration. Et c'est ainsi que le tchèque deviendra une langue morte (mais certainement après le suédois).
Les Tchèques, vous vous êtes battus pour régénérer votre langue au XVIIIe siècle. Prendre l'anglais comme langue officiel aujourd'hui serait à long terme la mort de votre langue. Ne faîtes pas cette erreur, vos ancêtres se retourneraient dans leurs tombes.
C'est ce qui s'est passé dans beaucoup d'institutions européennes d'ailleurs : pourquoi s'embêter à traduire les textes et à faire des communiqués dans d'autres langues vu qu'apparemment tout le monde maitrise très bien l'anglais ? ;') Ce qui les rend obscures et incompréhensibles au citoyen européen moyen, dont la compréhension de l'anglais dépasse rarement le B1. Et qui est donc plus susceptible de devenir eurosceptique... L'UE se tire une énorme balle dans le pied avec son "euro-english", hors de question que les pays membres fassent de même.
Le tchèque, le suédois, le néerlandais et toutes les autres sont de belles langues. Ne signons pas leur arrêt de mort en les rendant inutile dans leurs propres pays.
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English dominates as the language that Europeans are most likely to be able to speak: In terms of the most common foreign languages spoken, the linguistic map of Europe is similar to that presented in 2005, with the five most widely spoken foreign languages remaining English (38%), French (12%), German (11%), Spanish (7%) and Russian (5%).
Source: Special Eurobarometer 386 EUROPEANS AND THEIR LANGUAGES REPORT (2012) p. 19 (https://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf)
I would like to complement your comment with a detail that is often omitted from such surveys and that is proficiency in second language. Starting with my native language (sk) my proficiency may be somewhere at 20k++ words and phrases. My second (en) thanks to living in UK for 13 years will be around 20k. Third (cz) thanks to being exposed to it via TV for half of my life would be by my informed guess around 10k. Having lived in Poland for 2 years I can claim I speak polish but my set is hardly around 3k. Last but not least only learning German at school but never have lived there or been exposed to the language I could still claim I can speak it however with Wortschatz around 1k my communication is strongly limited. Learning a foreign language reaching proficiency of a native teenager 20k+ without years of everyday exposure is quite a tall order. So here comes AI to the rescue. I know it’s not perfect but remember 20 years ago we didn’t have any. It gives you the full set instantly
This survey actually accounts for that. It only counts languages with a certain proficiency, i.e. in which people are able to hold a conversation. But yes, the translation software is lifesaving. I'm studying in Paris with just a basic level of French, so I'm a frequent user of the DeepL translator myself.
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The fact Europeans speak so many languages is a huge challenge but may I turn your attention to this website we are on right now? Any EU citizen can freely and we are spontaneously discussing our future here mostly in our own languages while AI (although not so intelligent yet) is helping us with the translation. Given enough time this may become practical to the point that using AI (maybe in your smartphone) would surpass the use of learned common language
I don't know about you, but I've seen most people on this forum using English, actually. The AI here isn't perfect, and the user-friendliness leaves something to be desired since you need to turn it on each time. So that proves my point that English is already the de facto lingua franca of Europeans, whether we like it or not.
Man könnte das auch andersrum sehen:
Großbritannien ist bekannt dafür, mit perfiden, kulturimperialistischen Methoden andere Kulturen zu unterwandern, auszubeuten und in Fällen wie Irland sogar kulturellen Genozid zu betreiben.
Wer die Sprache am besten beherrscht, in der das Schicksal eines Landes besprochen und entschieden wird, hat die besten Chancen, sich in den Debatten durchzusetzen. Wenn hier also hauptsächlich Englisch gesprochen wird, ist das schon eine undemokratische Filterfunktion. Eine solche ist natürlich auch schon bei Diskussionen in der eigenen Muttersprache gegeben und dies ist bereits ebenfalls problematisch.
Aber wenn eine Sprache bevorzugt wird, die in der EU nur als Fremdsprache gesprochen wird, legt das den Argumentationsvorteil auch in die Hände von Leuten, die z.B. gar kein EU-Bürger, ja evt. der EU feindlich gesinnt sind. Denn wer mit Kriegsschiffen französische Fischerschiffe bedroht, ist nicht unbedingt der beste Partner, den man sich vorstellen kann.
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Urgh no, thanks but no thanks. English is, in the minds of European citizens and in all countries in the world, the language of the UK and the US. The UK, the country which leaves our union and mock us since then, and does not respect the treaties we signed with it. The US, which was always against the diplomatic/economic/military... independence of the EU, and will do everything it can to prevent it. And we are supposed to make this language official in our countries ?? No, never. Now that the UK left, it's a foreign language for 99% of EU citizens. English as the unique language of the EU would give an enormous & unfair advantage to the 1% English native speakers.
If the EU wants to be more than "international", more than just a club of nations, it has to take its linguistic independence, and use another language than english in its institutions. Esperanto, Interlingua, Neolatin... Many languages could work very well for that. It will be complicated to set up, but it's worth it.
Well, between Esperanto and Interlingua, Interlingua appears like a much better choice.
"Interlingua, for example, is an auxiliary language constructed better than Esperanto in terms of intelligibility of its vocabulary to speakers of European languages—just take a look at the Wikipedia article about Interlingua (http://ia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua) written in Interlingua and the article about Esperanto (http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto) written in Esperanto and see how much you can understand (but both languages take about the same amount of effort to learn; Esperanto just looks more complex to the untrained eye)."
Source: https://jakubmarian.com/learning-esperanto-is-it-worth-it/
But interlingua is basically a constructed Romance language. Why not just learn French or Italian then? From a poltical point of view (which is important in this question) ask yourself: What Europeans would accept some kind of "fake-French" as the official auxiliary language of Europe? .
The point of Esperanto is that it may have a few (glaring) flaws, but at the same time it's uniquely its own (European) language. Frankly, Esperanto is an auxiliary language that people might (not will, but just might) actually accept (in an auxiliary position) because its roots are culturally and linguistically diverse (basically a combination of Romance & Germanic vocab with Slavic & Romance phonology, with Germanic, Slavic & Greek grammar) and the ideology behind Esperanto is also quite in line with the ideal of United Europe; ie: Let's just bring people together by getting them talking to each other. On top of that, the fact that Esperanto is actually quite easy to learn, is also not bad :-)
Interlingua seems very easy to understand and learn, much more than French and Esperanto! English is also quite easy and nowdays it's everywhere, almost impossible to ignore for anyone. Equating French to Interlingua is very simplistic: French is proudly overcomplicated and unnecessarily complex, adopting Interlingua would be an affront to them almost like adopting English, the language they hate so much.
It is not French, though! I would not even call it fake-French. "Interlingua recognises that many European languages share common vocabulary – due to the historical prominence of Latin and Greek – and therefore aims to extract and standardize the most widespread words for a concept. To qualify for inclusion in Interlingua, the presence of words must be shown in the primary control languages: (English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese) or secondary control languages: (German and Russian).[5] However, words from a diverse range of languages are found in Interlingua, including: Japanese (geisha and samurai), Arabic (califa), Guugu Yimithirr (gangurru) (Interlingua: kanguru), and Finnish (sauna).[5]" (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua).
For me, Esperanto looks like it focused on too many languages to be compatible and comprehensible, and as a result, it looks unpleasant. In comparison, Interlingua looks much more pleasant and comprehensible.
Interlingua est plus "naturel" (ressemble plus aux langues européennes habituelles), mais Espéranto est plus logique dans son fonctionnement, et plus "productif" lorsqu'on veut exprimer finement ses idées.
"ressemblé plus aux langues européennes habituelles"? Not really. Not the Germanic, Slavic, Finno-Ugric or Celtic ones, for instance. Which is the majority of Europe's native tongues. Interlingua is very much a constructed Romance language: Its grammar is 100% Latinate. Its core vocabulary (words such as "un" and "es") is 100% Latinate. Which makes sense, as its "primary control languages" are French, Italian, Spanish, Portugues & English. In other words: It is not truly European. Just that part south of the Alps and west of the Balkans. Does such a one-sides constructed language truly represent Europe's cultural variety?
To be honest, I do like Esperanto, simply because it is more "its own thing", it exists in its own right and doesn't try to be a cheap replica of some of the languages we've already got, while Interlingua feels like a Chinese replica of Swiss watch: It's a lot cheaper, but it doesn't feel so good once you got it ... What can I say: Mi amas Esperanton :-)
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" L’anglais est un choix logique car presque tout le monde la parle comme deuxième langue." : non, seule une minorité des Européens est capable de parler anglais.
Il serait plus juste de dire que tous les gouvernements imposent l'enseignement de l'anglais, mais les élèves ont beaucoup de difficultés avec cette langue, qui est trop difficile (prononciation bizarre, verbes irréguliers, sens des mots imprécis, analyse logique de la phrase complexe...).
La meilleure solution pour une langue officielle commune pour tous les Etats membres serait l'espéranto.
Surtout que si on impose l'apprentissage de l'anglais dès le plus jeune âge, c'est la voie royale vers le suicide linguistique... Car après tout, si dans le futur tout le monde en Europe parle parfaitement anglais, pourquoi continuer à parler italien, grec, polonais, allemand... et à le transmettre à ses enfants ?
Car neurologiquement parlant, commencer à faire apprendre une langue étrangère à un enfant avant ses 4 ans, cela revient à lui donner cette langue comme 2ème langue maternelle...
L'anglais étant la langue nationale de plusieurs états en Europe et dans le monde, il n'est assurément pas neutre.
Mieux vaut utiliser l'espéranto en tant que langue de travail de l'UE et le privilégier comme première langue étrangère apprise à l'école (car les recherches montrent qu'il s'apprend plus vite et facilite l'apprentissage des autres langues, du moins pour les enfants) et pour familiariser les citoyens européens avec celui-ci.
On pourrait utiliser le français comme langue principale de L'Union. La Chine a le chinois, la Russie le russe, les États-Unis l'anglais, et nous on aurait le français. Ça a d'ailleurs été pendant longtemps la langue parlée à l'international et elle est aujourd'hui parlé sur tous les continents par environ 300 millions de personnes. Le français est lié très fortement à l'italien et à l'espagnol.
Je dis ça, mais au fond, il faut que chaque pays garde sa langue et n'en prenne pas une seconde (ou plus) officielle. Petit à petit ça le détruirait culturellement. La beauté est dans la diversité. Attendons encore quelques années et les systèmes de traductions seront parfaits. D'ailleurs l'Union Européenne devrait mettre plusieurs milliards pour financer la recherches dans ce domaine.
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Like it or not, English is the most used to pass ideas when a language barrier exists. The how it ended to be like this is something that doesn't matter. It is like this so deal with it.
I for one learned English by watching Cartoon Network when i was a kid. I don't know when it started here, but i seen it earlier when we first got cable TV and watched german and italian stations. And i kind of despise this approach of having every kid show voice translated. If you want to translate a show just use subtitles but leave the original language and voices.
So yeah, totally for English as the second official EU language.
Mr Karim is not proposing to make English the second official EU language, he proposes to make English official in every EU member states. It's extremely different...
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I just want to add the argument that we're classifying English as a "second language" for a reason. No one's native language is going to be threatened by this. You're not suddenly going to be forced to use English with your local friends and family just because more people speak the same second language. It's just additional assurance that people from completely differents places in the EU are able to communicate, taking advantage of an already very popular language that is already the de facto standard for interpersonal communication all over the world.
English already threatens native European languages, just look at Danish or Dutch for example. And imposing it like Mr. Karim proposes will, actually, threatens them even more. If all Europeans knows English then it's useless for them to pass their native language to their children. It would also be useless for immigrants to learn national languages of their new countries if everything around them is in English... That is EXACTLY how languages die. One example : do you know why people speak French in France ? Because Gallic people were fascinated by the Roman culture, the Gallic elite sent their children to Latin schools, adopted the Roman way of life, started to speak Latin... Does the Gallic language exist today ? No it died, nothing remains of it.
The same thing is happening today with many languages in the world and particularly in Europe, even with big languages like German. Maybe we do not see it because this language replacement takes generations to happen, but it's happening.
I believe one argument that could be made as well, is that English is by far the prevalent language of the latin-character internet.
Furthermore, the EU would save a huge amount of time and money, if they wouldn't have to translate everything in 27 languages first.
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Englisch ist in der EU de facto nur noch eine Fremdsprache (wenn man von Irland und Malta absieht).
Es ist völlig inakzeptabel, eine Fremdsprache willkürlich zu einer offiziellen Sprache zu machen. Denn wenn die EU nicht in der Lage ist, die eigenen sprachlichen Verhältnisse eigenmächtig so zu gestalten, dass sich die europäischen Völker autonom selbst verwalten können, dann ist sie das Papier nicht wert, auf das ihre Verträge gedruckt wurden!
Politik legitimiert sich nicht mit dem Status Quo, sondern gestaltet die Zukunft so, dass die Fehler des Status Quo behoben werden. Die völlig überzogene und unhaltbare Rolle, die Englisch unverständlicherweise heute noch in der EU spielt, ist so ein Fehler.
Man muss ja auch die globalen Tendenzen sehen: Englisch ist auf dem absteigenden Ast. China will es als Pflichtfach in der Schule abschaffen. Die EU sollte nicht auf ein lahmes Pferd setzen!
Spanisch wäre viel naheliegender, auch im Hinblick auf seine wachsende Bedeutung in den USA.
Ich persönlich würde vorschlagen, dass jeder EU-Bürger mindestens eine romanische (also Spanisch, Französisch, Italienisch, Portugiesisch, ...) sowie eine (nord)germanische Sprache (Deutsch, Holländisch, Dänisch, Schwedisch, ...) erlernen muss.
Da Englisch nicht viel mehr als eine Mischung aus romanischen und germanischen Sprachen ist, lässt es sich mit so einem Wissen in Windeseile en passant erlernen; mit dem Vorteil, dass man Englisch dabei gleich viel besser verstehen lernt, als wenn man es direkt ohne Bezug auf seine Wurzeln lernen würde. Ich habe z.B. immer wieder die Erfahrung gemacht, dass ich in einigen Punkten über ein tieferes Verständnis des Englischen als so mancher Muttersprachler verfüge, da diese sehr selten die Herkunft der Wörter und der Grammatik richtig kennen und diese meist nur intuitiv erlernen, ohne den tieferen Sinn zu begreifen.
Dire que l'espagnol devrait remplacer l'anglais dans l'UE parce que c'est une langue de plus en plus importante aux États-Unis, c'est comme dire que l'UE ne devrait utiliser que l'anglais parce que c'est la "langue internationale" : dans les deux cas le référentiel n'est pas l'Europe, on se base sur la réalité d'autres pays plutôt que de se concentrer sur nos besoins à nous. Si le chinois devient la langue internationale, l'UE utilisera le chinois ? Ou le swahili/lingala/français qui sont des langues qui gagnent de l'importance avec la croissance de l'Afrique ?
Non, si nous européens, nous devons choisir une langue commune il faut que l'on choisisse en fonctions de NOS besoins, pas en fonction de ce qui se fait à l'étranger. Si on se base sur le critère démographique, alors utilisons l'allemand. Si on utilise le critère démographique + influence mondiale, prenons le français. Si on veut être plus égalitaires et ambitieux, utilisons l'espéranto. Il y a beaucoup de solutions possibles...
I strongly disagree that English should become the "officiel common language" of Europe, and in fact I even think English should no longer be used as the main working language in the European institutions.
In my view, a better common language would be one that relates to Europe's identity, history and culture, and is also still present in schools, monuments, churches, etc. This language is Latin -- our common language for 2000 years.
Classical Latin is of course a bit difficult to learn. However, a European initiative (led by the Latina Academia: https://latina.ac/en/) has resurrected Latin in a modern form, called "Modern Latin". It is important to note that Modern Latin is very easy to learn (i.e. you can be fluent in a year) and it is a truly European language, and as such would be a great initiative to unite European citizens and reinforce democracy.
Modern Latin would provide fairness and equality among European citizens.
The EU member states are free to set their official language(s). The EU has no say.
In continental Europe, English is spoken as the official language of Gibraltar. In Ireland and Malta, English also has an official status, along with Irish and Maltese.
The EU language policy goal is that citizens should master their mother tongue and two other languages (1 + 2). Which ones would be the most useful or easiest to learn?
If your children must study two languages other than their mother tongue, would you choose: English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, or Chinese?
If the EU wants to achieve its language policy goal – including senior citizens – it should probably add two easy-to-learn languages to the list:
- Modern Latin as a unifying European lingua franca, and
- Esperanto as a global lingo.
Let the people choose.
The EU has a population of 450 million people. Whatever combination of 1 + 2 languages they choose, there will be millions or tens of millions of speakers.
Because Europe intends to be a democracy, I believe we should follow the lead of the founders of the USA and vote. It was very short in favour of English vs German...
It could be the first ever referendum organised by the European Institutions.
All arguments could be put forth, number of people in the Europe and in the world speaking the language, importance of the language in law, literature and philosophy, etc. Any entry would be possible and motivation would be there I am sure
Η Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση σκοπό έχει την επίλυση των Κοινών προβλημάτων των Κρατών μελών και όχι τη επιβολή μιας κοινής γλώσσας. Δεν έχει αξία η γλώσσα που μιλάμε αλλά αυτά που λέμε... τα υπόλοιπα είναι εργασία για επαγγελματίες μεταφραστές...
Anche l’India al momento della sua liberazione dal dominio inglese ha fatto questa scelta con ottimi risultati senza che nessuno la accusasse di favorire il precedente sgradito dominio. In tutti questi anni è stata una mossa vincente che ha aperto all’India la facile comunicazione col resto del mondo, la possibilità di commerciare agevolmente e di permettere a tanti suoi giovani meritevoli di studiare in prestigiose Università straniere. Oltre all’occasione di imparare una scrittura con cui conoscere direttamente la letteratura di molti paesi occidentali. Questo è molto più difficile per un greco, un russo, un giapponese, un sudcoreano o un arabo. Mi chiedo se è stato proprio per l’adozione della scrittura occidentale, grazie alla lungimiranza di Kemal Ataturk, che la Turchia è riuscita a entrare nella NATO...
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