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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’

#261

Post by toyg »

Tsiklon wrote: 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

As others said, this is just a French stunt during their 6-month presidency, which is being amplified in the Anglo press because of post-Brexit tensions. The actual working languages will stay the same. Half the Union would probably leave tomorrow, if French really became the dominant language.

One of the marvels of the EU institutional cathedral is the way they can manage effectively more than a dozen different languages. Yes, there are a handful of preferred ones, but in the end everything has to be translated to even the most obscure lingo. Sadly, instead of celebrating this epic taming of Babel, the French insist in narrow-minded cultural imperialism (as a reaction to Anglo-american imperialism, many of them would probably retort...), so they periodically pull these stunts. Nobody really cares, but if it keeps them invested in the Union, I'm happy to let them play king for 6 months.

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

#262

Post by qsort »

gdsdfe wrote: post #255
qsort wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yeah for you yes, for others it's synonym with colonialism, and armed invasion.

Not sure who's "you", considering I'm not a native speaker. But that's besides the point, conflating the English language with the foreign policy of the United States is exactly the kind of idiotic political game I was talking about.

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

#263

Post by gumby »

adventured wrote: post #162
gumby wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandarin would open the EU to the largest number of speakers. Spanish would be a good second, if English is politically untenable, but of course it's already an official EU language so choosing it might annoy the other states. Romansh is an European language not used in the EU; choosing it would level the playing field (and would not be so politically complex as another such like Basque).

> Mandarin would open the EU to the largest number of speakers More people speak English than Mandarin and that language base represents a dramatically larger economy than Mandarin does. The long-term trends favor English over Mandarin, not least of which is due to the difficulty of learning Mandarin vs English. The demographics underpinning Mandarin use are exceptionally bad in terms of direction, whereas the demogr…

> More people speak English than Mandarin and that language base represents a dramatically larger economy than Mandarin does.

Oh I agree but I was jocularly speculating on multiple constraints, to whit English is unacceptable as it would imply something favourable about those damned splittists; Spanish would not be acceptable because it would elevate one European country's language above others (though wasn't that the de facto story about English before Brexit?) etc etc.

In a different comment I argued for English because is not the selected language of any EU country.

Hmm, German might be a good choice as it is the EU language of three nations, so has a "majority vote" :-)

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

#264

Post by gumby »

varajelle wrote: post #176
dmurray wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Luxembourg has its own language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourgish

Yes but it's not their "official" EU language. I don't know if they nominated German or simply didn't nominate one at all as German was already official.

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

#265

Post by tagrun »

svieira wrote: post #204
tagrun wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Part of the empire the Franks founded was named "France" and France still traces its origins to Frankish kings. So connecting a trade language spoken by the empire-before-the-empire with the empire of France doesn't seem that far off-base to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franks

From the wikipedia article on Mediterranean Lingua Franca

> Based mostly on Northern Italian languages (mainly Venetian and Genoese dialects) and secondarily from Occitano-Romance languages...

So it's not the "language of Franks".

Also,

> Lingua franca means literally "language of the Franks" in Late Latin, and originally referred specifically to the language that was used around the Eastern Mediterranean Sea as the main language of commerce. However, the terms "Franks" and "Frankish" were actually applied to all Western Europeans during the late Byzantine Period.

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

#266

Post by toyg »

popsicum wrote: post #242

If the request is for longer than 6 months, then I don't get the argument. How is this multiculturalism? I and many other people that rely on English as a language to communicate across nations feel left out. Looking at the comments, there seems to be a distorted impression that EU=France (or any major Western country) and on top of that, the rest of the countries should be grateful for being given a chance to be put…

Calm down. This is obviously going nowhere. Nothing is going to change, the French are just sending up some lead balloons for their own media, right before an election year (April 2022 presidentials). Do you really think 26 countries (most of whom don't speak French nor trade primarily with France) will just let Paris lord over them? Of course not. The working languages will stay the same; some overzealous French bureaucrat might try to act a bit snootier for 6 months, but I bet that they'll eventually go back to normal if they want to get shit done.

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

#267

Post by toyg »

ardit33 wrote: post #138
blocked_again wrote: post #134

As a non European I find this hillarious and childish.

It is a typical French thing. Since they don't have a global influence anymore since WW2, all they can do is throw hissy fits.

A lot of Africans would strongly disagree that France has no "global influence". There are an awful lot of French troops deployed somewhere in Africa right now, and an awful number of African countries still use a French-controlled currency.

They just keep playing the imperialism game in a very old-fashioned way, with little care for modern sensibilities.

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

#268

Post by tgragnato »

Bayart wrote: post #250
tgragnato wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite disillusioned about the future of the Union because of ridiculous stunts like this. Using English exposes people to a certain way of thinking that is more linked to a set of cultures or traditions. It's an undeniable fact, both semantics and linguistics teach us that. But if the aim is to help politicians think from a different perspective, French is a bad choice. If that was the purpose, a reasonable choic…

>a reasonable choice would be to opt for languages related to cultures of more practical rationality That's essentialist nonsense. How are German or Scandinavian cultures more « practically rational » in an empirical sense ? Is there anything to it beyond short-sighted stereotypes ? That's not even getting to the fact that rationalism and positivism have French input stamped all over it, with German philosophy genera…

Please do not attribute to me things I did not write.

I did not mention positivism, which is not necessarily embedded in the political environment we have today.

The main contributions in rationalism and empiricism are not French.

German philosophy is not generally positivist, but that’s not what I wrote.

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

#269

Post by hulug »

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.

> "Easy to learn" is very subjective

Not really. For example, a language that has no grammatical gender is inarguably easier to learn than a one that has.

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

#270

Post by akvadrako »

mnouquet wrote: post #143
leke wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Define "pretty big".

Around year 2000 there were about 2 million speakers. It's way above any other conlang.
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