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EU must adopt ‘EU English’ as its official working language after Brexit (2017)

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Re: EU must adopt ‘EU English’ as its official working language after Brexit (2017)

#71

Post by nnq »

This is brilliant! Finally there's the opportunity to adopt an equalizing language that will also help free us from national culture isolationism:

- a language that is nobody's mother tongue: YEEEY!

- language that is not attached to any one culture: 10x YEEY!

Think about it! This could help global not just European unity: all the people of Asian and African origin who already speak fluent English could instantly embrace and join in and start building the new pan-European culture that will grow into a new and rich global culture. Freed from the tyranny of national-language-culture, this could be the first truly global culture Humanity has the chance to produce!

One thing Globalism 1.0 did wrong was trying to destroy culture. We know now that this leaves a void that attracts trash like racism, xenophobia and isolationism to get filled by these - culture too abhors vacuum! Now Globalism 2.0 can start right in the EU by constructing a new culture around a language that is nobody's own, at least on the cultural front. If this would ever work it will coagulate around it a new literature, then media etc. And finally we'd have a non-trash global culture that will be able to keep us united enough to properly address global issues like pollution and climate change!

Re: EU must adopt ‘EU English’ as its official working language after Brexit (2017)

#72

Post by s_dev »

rofo1 wrote: post #29

The language of our time is English. There's just no disputing that. You can argue that it's because US won the cold war, and then indoctrinated the world via music and movies, and so on, and so on, but it doesn't change that fact. We should adopt English and move on; majority of people know it and study it. Why regress? The point of using a language in the first place is to understand each other. Everyone learning a…

It's vital small languages are preserved and that the world doesn't become monolingual. Communication is a funny word -- we often mean it to commuincate with others but often we communicate with ourselves in the present -- and to our furture selves -- e.g. code comments are often for your future self as well as other programmers.

People who speak different lanaguges litteraly "think differently" and diversity of thought is absolutely essential to humanity progressing.

It's been positied that "Asians are better at math" because their languages have a more logical naming system for numbers giving many a small early advantage that accumulates over time. Other languges possess other attributes that impart such advantages or disadvanges giving us diversity of thought so that we can have new ideas about things and new perspectives.

Re: EU must adopt ‘EU English’ as its official working language after Brexit (2017)

#74

Post by Creationer »

BjoernKW wrote: post #63
pvaldes wrote: post #15

Chinese would be even better

Just because it's spoken by more native speakers than any other language that doesn't automatically make Mandarin more relevant in a global context. English is a global language due to its history (largely grounded in the British Empire's colonial history). Mandarin on the other hand in a global context as of today is still largely irrelevant because it's only spoken in one country, even as that country is as globall…

Chinese is tonal and cannot be typed into a computer without going through the Pinyin intermediary stage. It is fundamentally ill-suited to being a modern global language.

Re: EU must adopt ‘EU English’ as its official working language after Brexit (2017)

#75

Post by jcbrand »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #28

>> More specifically, Brexit’s silver lining for Europe might have to do with unleashing the deepening of European integration in a whole bunch of areas where the Brits have been reluctant to go. After Brexit, they won’t have to, and the rest of the EU will be freed of the British veto and able to get as integrated as it wishes. Nice- a little controversial barb hidden in a larger, already controversial (but less so)…

I don't see anything particularly mean about that quote and it's definitely not the first time I've heard this argument brought up (that EU can continue with further integration without UK obstructionism).

Re: EU must adopt ‘EU English’ as its official working language after Brexit (2017)

#76

Post by tluyben2 »

lucb1e wrote: post #67
tluyben2 wrote: post #8

Pick a language, any language, but adopt it as official. It won't happen though. Germany, France, Spain, Italy and even Belgium are all way too proud. I am, for instance, a big fan of the Flemish language and the German language, but it is just not practical to keep them if you want to promote a united EU. But being Dutch I am for cooperation/trade; many people do not think like that and think their language and ways…

Fellow Dutch speaker here. Why in the world are you a big fan of our language? Just because it's your own? And German, just because it's so close? Both languages are horrible to learn compared to English.

I am a fan because I like them in a literary sense. I enjoy reading Flemish writers (Hubert Lampo, Hugo Raes) and German writers; I like the way sentences are built up and how they sound. I like Dutch less than Flemish, especially A.B.N. I find quite horrible these days. We bastardized our language too much in my opinion and our Belgian neighbors have always tried to prevent that.

But my point was (typing on mobile so maybe I skipped a beat there) that although I like these languages, I think they are indeed impractical and we should just adopt English or Mandarin.

Edit: also, where does that statement 'horrible to learn' come from? Honest question; I'm not sure how it works; not trolling here. We (the Dutch) are quite lenient with languages and I know why I am anyway; my German is as good as my English and my French and it did not take much effort learning these. I was not a very smart or particularly hard working student but when I grew up there was UK television, German television (the best of the bunch), Dutch television, Belgian television (was very good and original compared to Dutch tv as well, and with shows like Undercover very much back in the game) and French television; I learned most of my practical languages from watching scifi and horror when I was a kid.

Re: EU must adopt ‘EU English’ as its official working language after Brexit (2017)

#77

Post by pjc50 »

nnq wrote: post #71

This is brilliant! Finally there's the opportunity to adopt an equalizing language that will also help free us from national culture isolationism : - a language that is nobody's mother tongue: YEEEY! - language that is not attached to any one culture: 10x YEEY! Think about it! This could help global not just European unity: all the people of Asian and African origin who already speak fluent English could instantly em…

> One thing Globalism 1.0 did wrong was trying to destroy culture

Could you expand on this, I'm not sure what you're referring to?

Re: EU must adopt ‘EU English’ as its official working language after Brexit (2017)

#78

Post by tspiteri »

new_here wrote: post #55

I was raised to use British English spelling. Honestly, without any offence intended, whenever I see words like 'color', 'organize', 'oriented' and so on my mind sees it as a lazy (for lack of a better word) interpretation of the original word's spelling that has evolved in the US. I don't think the content has any less merit because of it, the authors are following the American convention. Just saying that because I…

-ize is correct in British English as well; if anything it is more "original" as it comes from the Greek -izo (iota, zeta, omega), which is the origin of the suffix. In fact Oxford English Dictionary (OED) spelling, and the Hart's Rules guide, are for organize, not for organise. (On the other hand, analyze is American while analyse is British.)

Re: EU must adopt ‘EU English’ as its official working language after Brexit (2017)

#79

Post by Majestic121 »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #38
rofo1 wrote: post #29

The language of our time is English. There's just no disputing that. You can argue that it's because US won the cold war, and then indoctrinated the world via music and movies, and so on, and so on, but it doesn't change that fact. We should adopt English and move on; majority of people know it and study it. Why regress? The point of using a language in the first place is to understand each other. Everyone learning a…

> We should adopt English and move on; majority of people know it and study it. Why regress? It's extremely offensive to suggest that English is progress and other languages are a 'regression'.

I think the progress part is about having a common language, not about this common language being English. If the common language was wolof, people moving back to their own (Spanish, French, German, whatever) would be regression, as now a discussion between French, Spanish and German people would be much much harder to have.

Re: EU must adopt ‘EU English’ as its official working language after Brexit (2017)

#80

Post by barking »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #47

I don't think English will stop being EU's lingua franca any time soon. Agreeing on a replacement would be politically impossible (the Germans wouldn't accept French, the French wouldn't accept German, the Spanish would have good arguments to make in any of both cases); and having several languages in equal status would just be not practical (you cannot realistically expect every EU citizen to know their native langu…

I would also like Latin as the EU language

It would be like deja veni vidi vici all over again.

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