Language Policy of the European Union

[Rossiya]

Some of us have difficulty remembering one language, and thanks to government policy to not teach a foreign language in primary school, my generation will have few linguists. I'd love to be able to speak another language, but unfortunately that's a skill I'll likely never have now.

Why will you not get that skill?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Why not just go back to Latin?

 

[philippe]

Why not just go back to Latin?

yeah, i'd love to order my pizza, by shouting "placentos"

 

[Mirc]

yeah, i'd love to order my pizza, by shouting "placentos"

Haha, that wouldn't be so weird for me. "Placinta" means pie here. (although I admit it's the only language to preserve this word in informal speech , so I can see why it wouldn't appeal to others)

 

[Simple Simon]

I still do not really understand why they did not simply pick the most spoken language and the strongest currency when they created the EU.



Oh, what is that you say? That's been tried before and the US and Russia didn't like it at all?

[/sarcasm]

 

[innonimatu]

It's in the EU interest to create a European demos. EU should make a directive asking the member states to make English (or some other language chosen by the member states to become the new official language) compulsory at schools. If the directive was observed and suceeded, in 30 years we'd have a population which would be able to communicate in one language.

This would boost the formation of European nation immensely - we need to get rid of the language barrier.

The "EU interest", whatever that may be, is not my interest then.

 

[philippe]

on a sidenote: do you notice around your peers an increased use of English in daily speech?

I have and I abhor it. It's painful to my ears and brains.

becuase of once reacting to two using "nederenglish" (Dutch with mixed words in it), I said a line which has become an meme around the block: Het gebruik van Engels in het alledaagse leven is een teken van verval van onze maatschappij.

wanna know what I said? Start learning a language and enrich yourself!

Moderator Action: Be that as it may, this is an English-language forum. Please provide a translation.
the use of English in everyday life is a sign of decay of our society.

 

[Winner]

The "EU interest", whatever that may be, is not my interest then.

It's in the collective interest of European people, you selfish individualist

 

[really]

I thought the official language policy was related to those who wanted to work for an EU institution?

Many national officials are more comfortable in French but in a discussion if there are a few who aren't the language defaults to English.

Personally I don't see why anyone who wants to work for the EU shouldn't be able to speak Native + (2/3) of English, French or German + if possible one other. (in addition to their specalisation)

More generally I believe each student should be taught one non native language for a while at least.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Should the European Union just sit back and let the people decide so to speak, if they all choose English, so be it?

This. Forcing languages on people will only create animosity. And that policy could be seen as homogenizing a component of European culture, in this case language.

 

[Yoda Power]

As always, the only problem here are the French.

 

[Verbose]

I don't know why, but the idea of Latin-speaking European Union seems very cool to me I'd love to see all the US religious nuts rambling about the resurrection of the Beast, the final reappearance of the Roman Empire and whatnot

But I heard that Latin is really difficult to learn.

Yup. It would be pretty cool. I at times work with a Latin scholar who sidelines in "spoken Latin", teaching courses in it. It's perfectly workable. Oh, and he's American, from Detroit.

The thing not to do is to, like the Renaissance scholars did, try to ressurect some kind of "ideal" Classical Latin, like what Cicero wrote (not spoke, wrote). What you go for instead in late Medieval Latin, which was an interesting, supple, crazy useful language for every kind of human activity.

 

[Mirc]

The thing not to do is to, like the Renaissance scholars did, try to ressurect some kind of "ideal" Classical Latin, like what Cicero wrote (not spoke, wrote). What you go for instead in late Medieval Latin, which was an interesting, supple, crazy useful language for every kind of human activity.

Exactly, exactly exactly!! That's what I've been trying to say in this thread with my posts about not speaking the classical, constructed and idealised Latin, but a vernacular variant of it.

 

[Winner]

As always, the only problem here are the French.

So true

Yup. It would be pretty cool. I at times work with a Latin scholar who sidelines in "spoken Latin", teaching courses in it. It's perfectly workable. Oh, and he's American, from Detroit.

The thing not to do is to, like the Renaissance scholars did, try to ressurect some kind of "ideal" Classical Latin, like what Cicero wrote (not spoke, wrote). What you go for instead in late Medieval Latin, which was an interesting, supple, crazy useful language for every kind of human activity.

Is the grammar easier to learn?

 

[Dachs]

It means "language of the Franks" as far as I know.

Yes; it's a reference to Sabir, which literally was a common tongue across the Mediterranean and used by Arabs when speaking to Latin Christians (universally referred to as 'Franks').

 

[Mirc]

Is the grammar easier to learn?

Definitely!!

(and the pronounciation is way easier than most languages: reasonable balance between consonants and vowels; very, very phonetic spelling; lack of accents for a period of time, since we would be starting it from the beginning, etc)

 

[Verbose]

Is the grammar easier to learn?

Wouldn't think it perceptibly more difficult to learn than in any other romance language. Word order matters in Medieval Latin in a way it doesn't in what the old Romans spoke. Besides, if it's "EU Latin", we are at liberty to make pragmatic decisions about it. It's just useful if these tally with the way Latin worked when it was still a living language.

 

[Mirc]

Wouldn't think it perceptibly more difficult to learn than in any other romance language.

I'd say that on average it would actually be easier. Non-Romance speakers would take around the same amount of time to learn it (I'd venture to say even less, because it would have a perfectly phonetic spelling and many words loaned to non-Romance languages), while Romance speakers would find it easier than learning another Romance language because of the very "median", "close-to-all" character it would have.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

No, no, no, Classical Latin is far superior! Classical Latin is perfectly phonetic, while Medieval Latin has some really arbitrary pronunciation rules and plenty of exceptions to these rules. The grammar is basically the same, but classical Latin is more flexible when it comes to word order.


I found Latin grammar pretty easy to learn. It is extremely regular. Declension matter more than in German, but Syntax is almost completely irrelevant so declension is basically all you have to worry about.

 

[Jan H]

As always, the only problem here are the French.

In my personal experience, I think that the French speak better English then, for example, the Spaniards. At my previous job at I had several French colleagues who spoke English really well (certainly better than my French!)
So, while the French government may be ratter protective of their language, I think that most young, educated French people don't have so much trouble with English any more...