Earlier quoted context omitted.
It makes no sense at all.
What if you want to make organisations who need English translations of EU documents foot the bill for translating into a non Official EU language?
That would be everyone.
French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’
111–120 of 392 posts
Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would be the point? Might as well make Klingon an official language.
One is designed to be easy to learn, to be regular and logical and use roots familiar to European ears, the other is designed to sound alien. (Does Klingon have a word for bridge-of-a-ship and not bridge-over-water, or is that just an urban legend?)
https://www.kli.org/about-klingon/new-klingon-words/date/# says that QI is klingon for bridge over water.
Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’
#113Somehow this made wonder if Esperanto or at least the idea behind it that we can come up with one common language to use worldwide. If that was actually successful we might have less of this nonsense but then again good luck having everyone agreeing on something ... Hmm oh well
A single, permanent auxiliary language will never be implemented as long as people can make a repeated choice. Like with this storey, official languages will flip-flop based on power struggles. If there ever was an official auxiliary language though, I would wish it to be Ido.
Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’
#114I'm currently reading a book about the Congress of Vienna and it's amazing that the Russian Tsar argued with the English ambassador in French. Here were all the rich and powerful men of Europe dividing up the continent and there wasn't a single translator needed.
The aristocrats in Russia back then probably spoke French as well as or better than Russian if Tolstoy books are to be believed.
^ This is right. It happened because of Peter the Great's westward alignment of the royal machinery and continued till the last Tsar.
Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’
#115I’d have thought they would have kept English as it’s effectively a neutral language at that point - it would be convenient to avoid accusations of German or French dominance should either push for their’s in English’s place
Bear in mind, this kind of French bloodymindedness is why we have "UTC" - because if they couldn't have "temps universel coordonné" (TUC) then we damn-sure weren't going to have "coordinated universal time" (CUT).
Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’
#116Nobody should take any reporting about EU in the UK press at face value.
Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’
#117The 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…
Ireland: 99% English
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Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are they worried? English isn't English anymore. In fact it makes sense to chose a language that isn't the native language of any EU nation. (I'm squinting regarding Ireland).
Well, it's history and education. In every country children are told quite silly things about the world and, in particular, about the importance of their country in the world. This is even worse for current or former empires (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Russia, US, China...). Children there are told they are special and superior in some way to other children who were born in other places. It's not surp…
First of all, I don't understand why the French government wants to do that - it's quite ridiculous. However, I also suspect that it has to do this kind of public stunt to satisfy the conservative right wing, especially with the presidential election next year.
Furthermore, I think you are missing something quite fundamental here - French is pretty much one of the core building blocks of France, and no, this is not obvious. 150 years ago, not many people spoke French in France : they spoke Basque, Breton, Occitan, Corsican, Alsacian, and various forms of patois. What brought French everywhere was compulsory education led by missionary style teachers, world war I, and forbidding people from speaking their regional language. In essence, the language was a political tool to unify the country, and the French never stopped considering language as a political tool.
You may assume that this is 'arrogant nationalist French' behavior, but I will disagree.
Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’
#119I’d have thought they would have kept English as it’s effectively a neutral language at that point - it would be convenient to avoid accusations of German or French dominance should either push for their’s in English’s place
Shame there's no real-world interest in the powers that be to officialize Esperanto.
Or Ido.
Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’
#120The 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…
Ireland: 99% English
I doubt it's as low as that!
Malta and the Netherlands are other countries where a large majority also speak English.
In some places in the EU the UK's union jack flag is being replaced with the Irish tricolour on bank ATM's display of language choices, which amuses the Irish.