71–80 of 392 posts
The sane thing to do after the Brexit, was to embrace English as main language, since it has not become neutral ground! According to Wikipedia we have: * Germany: 56% English speakers, 14.5% French speakers * Italy: 34% English vs. 19.43% French * Spain: 22% English vs. 11.73% French * Sweden: 89% English vs. 8% French I can't get over how bad this decision is. How can you ignore these kinds of discrepancies? [1] htt…
This is a non-story. There are three working languages of the EU: English, French and German. Everyone in Brussels will roll their eyes, use French for six months and then revert to English because it’s the one most people speak. Would they have done this if Brexit hadn’t happened? Yes, they would. France has a chip on its shoulder about French being replaced as the world’s lingua franca, but stunts like this aren’t…
> Not even in Brussels. Most people in Brussels already speak French... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francization_of_Brussels
From that point on, I am now of the opinion that we need to protect, and use, more languages, not fewer. Not because of their cultural and historical value but because of their possibility to open up for completely seperate ways of thinking.
I say if you want a universal language everyone should learn Latin. Now you won't offend anyone. Except the French.
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Shame there's no real-world interest in the powers that be to officialize Esperanto.
What would be the point? Might as well make Klingon an official language.
(Does Klingon have a word for bridge-of-a-ship and not bridge-over-water, or is that just an urban legend?)
The sane thing to do after the Brexit, was to embrace English as main language, since it has not become neutral ground! According to Wikipedia we have: * Germany: 56% English speakers, 14.5% French speakers * Italy: 34% English vs. 19.43% French * Spain: 22% English vs. 11.73% French * Sweden: 89% English vs. 8% French I can't get over how bad this decision is. How can you ignore these kinds of discrepancies? [1] htt…
Anecdotally I can confirm those stats for Sweden. Some of the things I was blown away by in Sweden are: 1) Everyone's beautiful 2) Everyone's super tall. I'm 184cm and saw multiple women every day that were taller than me, let alone men. In the US it's quite rare for me to see women taller than me. 3) Everyone's rather slim. It's nice to see a population at healthier weights than what I'm used to in the US 4) Not onc…
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There's no other country in the EU that speaks French, either. And by numbers, German should prevail.
Your first point is incorrect: Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Monaco [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/european_languages/languages/...
I used to be against the French protectionism of its language, or the fact that research papers in China was written in Chinese. 'Why not just all speak English?', I thought back then. But then I learned French. More importantly I learned that when you speak another language, at a certain level (close to fluent), you realise that language is not only about communication. Language is also about thinking. You realise t…
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Having it as a work language just means that they’ll pout if whatever document they’re sent isn’t in French for the 6 months they are in charge - nothing more. No big deal.
Not really, the article says: > “We will always ask the Commission to send us in French the letters it wishes to address to the French authorities, and if they fail to do so, we will wait for the French version before sending it,” the diplomat said. "Send us French or consider your request to be second-class and ignored until you send us French".
> The unnamed diplomat said all high-level meetings of the Council – the body which helps sets the political agenda in Brussels – will be conducted in French instead of English during the six-month presidency.
It’s only during the Council, outside of the Council every country expects documents in their language.
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English is the dominant language of Ireland, Malta (and Scotland and Wales) but as each has a "national" language and English had already been selected by the UK, Ireland nominated Irish and Malta Maltese as an official EU language. So at the moment there is no country that has claimed English as its official language for EU purposes, thus it's legally OK to ignore anything official from or within the EU that is in E…
> But Malta or Ireland could simply take one for the team and switch their nominated language. I'm pretty sure that you can have more than one nominated language, given that Belgium and Spain have a bunch of them.
This is the reason the only Spanish language which is an official EU language is Castillian. The other three (Galician, Catalan and Basque) are not EU official languages. Same happens to many other languages spoken in Europe.