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French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

independent.co.uk

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Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#121

Post by posterboy »

heinrichhartman wrote: post #19

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…

* France: 0% proper English, 99.9% French

their English is terrîble

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#122

Post by vmception »

silicon2401 wrote: post #51
heinrichhartman wrote: post #19

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…

The other side of this is that there are some truly strange looking people as well. Like, almost matches the ideals in American media (which has been filled with Swedish models for nearly a century, setting our ideals from a young age) but an otherwise discarded iteration that would never be invited through our borders by the people already here. (The modeling agency, the au pair household, the guys.)

You can experience it in advance with Tinder Passport.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#125

Post by leke »

mannerheim wrote: post #83
chillacy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Klingon were invented in Europe and designed to be a pan-european easy-to-learn language, sure. Otherwise, Esperanto has some desirable attributes as a universal second language.

There are other, better-designed conlangs than Esperanto. Nobody speaks them, sure, but nobody speaks Esperanto either. And if we're going by popularity, might as well pick English anyway.

Esperanto has a pretty big, organised and active community. But you're right. I also think popularity should be the decider. If Esperanto thinks it should be the chosen auxiliary language, it will have to earn it.

Personally though, I prefer Ido over Esperanto.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#126

Post by admissionsguy »

silicon2401 wrote: post #51
heinrichhartman wrote: post #19

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…

> Not once did I find somebody who couldn't speak English, from workers at train stations to museums to airports. It was crazy

It's crazier than that. I've moved to a small village in northern Sweden in the middle of nowhere, and everybody speaks English here, too.

> Everyone's rather slim.

Agreed, but Austria beats it - there, everyone is ripped :)

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#127

Post by qsort »

gdsdfe wrote: post #102

Somehow 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

> if that was actually successful

It was successful. That language is English, the obvious choice agreed upon by everyone who isn't interested in playing idiotic political games.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#128

Post by leke »

Avamander wrote: post #109
chillacy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Klingon were invented in Europe and designed to be a pan-european easy-to-learn language, sure. Otherwise, Esperanto has some desirable attributes as a universal second language.

"Easy-to-learn" is very subjective. There's a lot of different languages spoken in the EU and the accessibility of a language environment matters.

True. I struggled with Esperanto for 10 years, only to give up and try Ido.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#129

Post by based2 »

heinrichhartman wrote: post #19

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…

Language arrangements at the Court of Justice of the European Union

https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/Jo2_10739/en/

"The Court needs a common language in which to conduct deliberations. That language is, by custom, French."

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#130

Post by dmurray »

gumby wrote: post #28
sys_64738 wrote: post #5

Only Ireland has English as their primary language of the EU so it makes sense.

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…

Malta and Ireland benefit from having an official language. The EU employs Irish and Maltese translators in extremely well paid tax-free jobs.

Maybe Austria would do it? It's the only EU country I can think of that doesn't claim to have its own language. Edit: also Belgium and Luxembourg.

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