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

independent.co.uk

221–230 of 392 posts

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

#221
So we have massive economic problems, some states on the verge of bankruptcy, a lost generation in Southern Europe, a currency under constant attack, autocratic tendencies and overall differences on social issues in the East, an immigration crisis from Africa and the Near East, threats to the sovereignity of neighbouring countries, literal slums in Rumania and Bulgaria. We are losing the economic battle against the US and China, the militiary one against Russia. We cannot convince either of those to do anything meaningful against climate change.

Apparently we can now add an infantility problem to the list.

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

#222

But French is even worse. To hell with these non-phonetical languages. I am serious. I'd take Latin over these unpredictable monstrosities any day of the week

Literary French is quite phonetic, at least outside proper names. What are some examples where you feel that French writing is not in a one to one relation with pronunciation?

Granted, my experience with French is rather limited and the language could be pretty consistent internally. But there's lots of utter madness such as "beacoup" which is literally "buku".

Sorry for being blunt but pronouncing 50% of the letters is extremely non phonetical. There's just no other way of putting it

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

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parts of Belgium. Just ~35% of Belgiums are French speakers. Most speak Dutch. Same for Switzerland, most Swiss speak German.

Flemish I think. Although it's pretty similar to Dutch.

Flemish is not a language, it's a dialect. The language is Dutch.

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

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Esperanto is the Linux of languages.

That's way too generous. Linux at least dominates in servers and smartphones.

And Linux is much more sensible than Esperanto. It is also very eurocentric, which would be ok in this context. But it really is mostly just romance/germanic language based, slavic and other languages are basically ignored.

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

#226

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…

I think embracing english as the main language of the EU is the worst idea since Brexit. It’s anything but neutral. It’s a concession made to the brits and a trojan for the Americans. They left, they can f right off and take their piss poor excuse of a language with them. It works for programming, insults and not much else. If they hadn’t joined the EU to sabotage it, maybe english wouldn’t be as popular in the EU. L…

> I write most often in english because nobody reads french compared to english

The irony.

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

#227
post #87
post #15

I’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

Are the Irish a joke to you?

It's worth remembering that in addition to not being one of the two historic mainland European powers whose languages happen to be the other working languages of the EU (and therefore unlikely to be jostling for supremacy in a post-Brexit EU), Ireland has been famously neutral during its existence as an independent nation. So I don't see what the problem is with characterising English as a "neutral" language in this context.

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

#228
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it ironic that English is the Lingua Franca?

No, because "lingua franca" derives from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca which has nothing to do with French, apart from people who didn't understand it mistook it for "French".

Great comment! I always presumed the term was an 18th-19th century coinage referring to French; had no idea it referred to a pidgin originating in the late middle ages. Thanks for the enlightenment!

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

#229

I'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.

That sounds like an interesting read, what's the title of the book?

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

#230

Ah, a return to the diplomatic norms of the 178th century. Literally a lingua franca, after all.

Not literally, no. The literal Lingua Franca spoken across the eastern meditarranean was named for the "Franks", which simply meant "Western Europeans" to the people speaking in lingua franca; but was mostly based on Italian, with slavic and Greek influences. So the French, the Prussians, the Venetians, probably even the Polish were "Franks" in the sense used in Lingua Francia.

In turn, the use of the term Frank to refer to western europeans was in relation to the Frankish Empire, a confederation of germanic tribes. France is one descendant of the Frankish Empire, Germany being another. The Franks themselves spoke a germanic language.

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