Breaking News: reformed English now only official EU language!

[carlosMM]

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English
will be the official language of the European Union rather than German,
which was the other possibility.


As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that
English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-
year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".


In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will
make the sivil servants jump with joy.


The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up
konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.


There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the
troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like
fotograf 20% shorter.



In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted
to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.


Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have
always ben a deterent to akurate speling.


Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag
is disgrasful and it should go away.


By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th"
with "z" and "w" with "v".


During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining
"ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.


Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu
understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.


Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze
forst plas

I know, this should be in humor&jokes, but I'd rather use this to start a discussion on a topic that popped up in a conversation today:

How many languages should a union like the EU have?

Please note that I am not asking how many are feasible, at what point things become so troublesome translating everything from every language to every other becomes numbing and a serious speedbump. No, I am thinking long term: should
native language + 1
be the aim of education? This would mean a predominance of one language, probably English, or should
native language + several common languages
be the aim? This is te status quo.

DISCUSS AWAY! - I'll add my 5C later.

 

[Rossiya]

in my opinion, there should not be an official EU language. europe is unique in how many languages it hosts, we should not try to bury a less dominant language, or promote a more dominant one.

 

[pboily]

Native language + 1 should be the aim.

As much as I hate it being so (being a francophone and all), in our neck of the woods at least (the West), English has become the lingua franca.

If the EU doesn't follow suit (not as an official language, but as the language they can use to conduct their common affairs), they'll likely find themselves lagging behind North America (ok, the US) in no time.

So European States should concentrate on whatever languages they consider to be their natural languages + english if that's not already one of them.

Does this give the UK+Ireland too much power? Probably not. But good luck getting France and Germany to go along with that.

 

[tomsnowman123]

There should not be an official EU language, people should be able to speak the language they want to. I don't see why people deem that it's important to control that.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

"3 languages" would be a reasonable aim IMO.

 

[Sidhe]

Carlosmm that's pretty funny.

I agree With Chris we don't need an official European language so long as all Europeans speak English as it's second language We'll get along fine

In all seriousness the English are criminally lazy still in learning foreign languages and it's not something I'm particularly keen on admiting.

 

[Rossiya]

"3 languages" would be a reasonable aim IMO.

but what would those languages be? say english, french and german. every other country would be outraged, and not accept it.

 

[Fox Mccloud]

The British accepted this plan?

Aren't they the onese that say Americans butchered English?

I hope this plan doesn't go through....

 

[Leifmk]

One language should suffice: Latin!

 

[Rossiya]

The British accepted this plan?

Aren't they the onese that say Americans butchered English?

I hope this plan doesn't go through....

the first bit of the first thread is a joke.

unless you are being sarcastic...

 

[Erik Mesoy]

but what would those languages be? say english, french and german. every other country would be outraged, and not accept it.

I meant that everyone should speak 3 languages. I'm working on my third (German) right now, fwiw.

 

[Truronian]

I don't think the language barrier is as much of a problem as it has been in the past, as English seems to be spoken to one degree or another by most Europeans nowadays. There is a common joke in our school that exchange trips are useless because you can just speak English to everyone abroad and they understand. One of the major influences is aparrantly the love for English (ie British and American) music in Europe.

 

[Rossiya]

I meant that everyone should speak 3 languages. I'm working on my third (German) right now, fwiw.

yes, that is a great idea. i am working towards being fluent in german and italian, as well as in my own mother language english.

 

[kronic]

should
native language + several common languages
be the aim? This is te status quo.

I think that's the better option. The goal of education shouldn't be reduced to "make the EU working" either. That's not the point of learning languages. English should be one of those languages, but not mandatory. Changes are, that 90+ % choose English anyway since it's the lingua franca as well as relatively easy to learn.

One language should suffice: Latin!

That would totally suck.

 

[Babbler]

The Official Langauges of the European Union!

English, because it is world linga franca, and there is no other way to speak to Americans. Also, they have the bomb.

French, because they stop whining about it, and they can boss everybody in their own language. Also, they have the bomb.

German, because they pay for the whole thing. They could also have the bomb, but they just too nice.

 

[Rossiya]

Changes are, that 90+ % choose English anyway since it's the lingua franca as well as relatively easy to learn.

because my mother language is english, i never had to learn it per se. what is so easy about learning english?

 

[Fox Mccloud]

I meant that everyone should speak 3 languages. I'm working on my third (German) right now, fwiw.

Well I'll be working on learning at least 4 languages, so I beat you even though I'm American.

 

[Sidhe]

because my mother language is english, i never had to learn it per se. what is so easy about learning english?

Derivation from Saxon(germanic languages)French, Celtic(European french/german) Latin: common ground in Romance languages such as French, spanish,Italian, Romanian, etc. some Viking language influence from Normans(that'd be the French again but originally Northmen) and other viking hordes.

This makes it a bastardised form of many European languages and should in theory make it easier to learn.

The British accepted this plan?

Aren't they the onese that say Americans butchered English?

I hope this plan doesn't go through....

Not quite we say that only the English have the right to butcher English

 

[.Shane.]

Well, from the perspective of an outsider, it seems the most practical thing would be to have 1 language for official EC business. But, due to all the politics, ethnic pride, etc.... that's not likely, or so I'd assume.

 

[sysyphus]

I think Europe should adopt Mandarin as its official language, but what do I know.

Isn't there a joke in Europe that goes some thing like: If you speak three languages you are trilingual, if you speak two languages you are bilingual, if you speak only one language you are British.