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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)

#81

Post by achamayou »

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…

French here, I absolutely agree. Specifically, American English would be preferable because it is what’s spoken widely outside Europe, and its spelling is somewhat more regular (as well as historically accurate!).

I wonder to what extent coming up with a new name for it would help adoption.

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

#82

Post by sgift »

peteretep wrote: post #6

> the rest of the EU will be freed of the British veto and able to get as integrated as it wishes Anyone who thinks that EU skepticism is exclusive to the Brits is in for a nasty nasty surprise.

The British position was special for at least three reasons:

- British state doctrine has always been: We are the empire, the natural rulers of the world. We only live by chance near the rest of Europe, so we have to interact with the continent at bit more

- Britain was a net payer. We may strive for that to not be relevant, but if you pay you have influence

- Britain got many exceptions to the usual rules that allowed them to further their position

No other country has that combination, so the EU "skepticism" of others countries is less important, though there's still danger. We'll see how that plays out in the end, but still: GBs position was in many ways unique. Even if GB rejoined in a few years it probably wouldn't be the same.

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

#83

Post by dmos62 »

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…

I usually stick to the British spelling as well, but I also love variety and I wish there were more "written dialects" of English that are widely accepted. I hate it when people react to different ways of talking or writing as if the other person was a child who hasn't learned the _proper_ way of doing things yet. As to the counter-argument of normalizing language use for the sake of the maximum number of people being able to easily understand each other: I think this argument underestimates peoples' capacity to communicate even when they can't understand 100% of the references or language, and it underestimates the negative effect an inflexible language has on the culture.

In some ways, it's a dilemma of where to draw the line between "this is a person who hasn't experienced enough language and therefore is deficient in its use" and between "this is a person who's language has adapted to his micro-cultural/social/etc. context".

I could go on and on about this. I think it's a fascinating, relevant subject.

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

#84

Post by seszett »

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…

> whenever I write CSS and type 'color', I think, this was developed in America

Well just so you know, it was mainly developed on the Franco-Swiss border (at CERN) by Norwegian, Dutch and English citizens.

The largest role of America in CSS is influencing the spelling because of its cultural weight, but not developing the language.

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

#85

Post by flohofwoe »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #58
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…

English is only the smallest common denominator really, and it hurts to hear Germans speak English imprecisely, stereotypically, or plain incorrectly. I'm far from being a language nationalist or something, but I think the EU (parliament, comission) should take the opportunity to move away from English, and begin to speak and publish in the "Common Tongue" (German, French, etc.) instead.

The current "common tongue" of the world and the EU is English. It might be a hardly recognizable pidgin dialect and very different from the posh Upper Class English spoken in London, but there's nothing wrong with that.

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

#87

Post by new_here »

tspiteri wrote: post #78
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.)

TIL, thanks for the clarification!

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

#88

Post by Majestic121 »

kayoone wrote: post #61

Living in working in the Berlin tech world, English is already the official working language in most companies. Even as I german i have no problem with this, my only gripe is that it makes it very hard for my non-german colleagues to learn german.

I have the same issue in Paris, I know some coworkers who have been living in France for more than 8 years, and still can't speak a reasonable French : barely able to order at a restaurant for exemple, definitely not able to hold a conversation.

I'm not sure it is actually an issue, it just feels weird as a French person to discover that French is not even required in your own country.

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

#89

Post by r_singh »

louthy wrote: post #40
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…

> You can argue that it's because US won the cold war, and then indoctrinated the world Seems odd, surely you could argue it was because of British imperialism (which also brought English to the US)? The British empire once covered 1/3 of the globe, it seems far more likely a cause.

It's true for India, British missionary schools popularised English (or should I say British English) in India on a large scale.

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

#90

Post by 0815test »

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…

> Personally, I'm from Spain and I'm not annoyed or upset about English being the lingua franca. I think we should abandon the idea of English "belonging" to its native speakers. When I talk to people from Germany, from China, or from Vietnam, for example our common language is almost always English, even if neither of us are natives.

Agreed. The EU should do the needful.

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