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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’

#351

Post by nico_h »

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…

Everybody uses Javascript, why use another programming language? English is newspeak.

They should just replace English as one of the three working language of the EU with esperanto / ido / interlingua or another conlang.

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

#352

Post by nico_h »

foresto wrote: post #214
throwaway-571 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m french and most of the content i watch is also in english, made mostly by americans with an american point of views and ways of resolving problems. Sometime in british english with british point of view. I think it’s sad that that you don’t seem to realize that it’s a problem that most of the content we are exposed comes from a single culture. As for the move, it’s totally useless, and if they wanted to be strong…

> you don’t seem to realize that it’s a problem that most of the content we are exposed comes from a single culture. I don't think GP's desire to minimise language barriers among 27 co-operating governments implies that they are oblivious to cultural bias. I do think the latter is an issue worth addressing, but this is probably not an effective or appropriate way to do it.

OP's solution to cultural bias is to ignore it and just go with convenience.

Well, you have to start somewhere. But I agree that the only thing it's likely to do is annoy the heck out of everybody.

I think they said French because if they had said French or German the other bodies might have used only German just to annoy the French back.

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

#353

Post by Tsiklon »

twic wrote: post #87
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

Are the Irish a joke to you?

I _am_ Irish. Due to its small size, its small population, and comparative recency on the world stage, Ireland does not hold the same level of prestige or historical political clout in the EU as France, or Germany (or even the UK when it was a member).

You also forget about the Maltese. The combined population of the two would still make it a middling region of France like Grand Est or a somewhere between Rheinland-Pfalz and Hesse in the case of the German Länder.

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

#354

Post by mariushn »

throwaway-571 wrote: post #178
cipher_system wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Sweden and Germany all (guess >99%) of the french speakers speak english way better then french. The amount of english we're exposed to is so massive and the french is basically non-existent. This is such a useless egoistic move from the french, just accept that english is the lingua franca.

I’m french and most of the content i watch is also in english, made mostly by americans with an american point of views and ways of resolving problems. Sometime in british english with british point of view. I think it’s sad that that you don’t seem to realize that it’s a problem that most of the content we are exposed comes from a single culture. As for the move, it’s totally useless, and if they wanted to be strong…

Wouldn't you listen to more content (news, movies...) from European countries, if it was in a language you understand, that being English? I'm in EU and would love for English to be the de facto language.

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

#355

Post by CDRdude »

1_player wrote: post #331
mywittyname wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so this makes me wonder something. So 6 foot tall (72in) is like a magic number for American men. That's like the threshold for manliness in popular culture. If you were to plot the self-reported heights men in America, you'd absolutely see a dip at 70 and 71 inches, then a big spike at 72in. What's this magic number in various metric countries? 185cm seems like a sound choice, but I could see it being 190 in s…

190cm (6'3) being a threshold for "manliness", as you say, has no bearing on actual human average sizes and might just be your personal bias showing. I think there's definitely a threshold around 6' in English cultures, possibly 180 cm in Europe, but in my personal experience it's not seen an important metric as the magic 6' number in Anglo cultures.

> 190cm (6'3) being a threshold for "manliness", as you say, has no bearing on actual human average sizes and might just be your personal bias showing.

Of course it has no bearing on a actual sizes! That’s why the commenter says “manliness in popular culture” and “self-reported heights”. He’s making the point that lots of men who are slightly shorter than 6 feet will lie and say they are 6 feet tall, and wondering if there is a comparable number in cm.

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

#356

Post by anticensor »

dahfizz wrote: post #135
throw737858 wrote: post #16

Why not arabic? French is kind of obsolete.

Is Arabic the official language of any EU country? Acording to Wikipedia[1], its not. Seems like a bizarre choice for official government business. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio...

Maltese, which is the official language of Malta, is an Arabic dialect.

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

#357

Post by herbst »

irrational wrote: post #286
throwaway-571 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m french and most of the content i watch is also in english, made mostly by americans with an american point of views and ways of resolving problems. Sometime in british english with british point of view. I think it’s sad that that you don’t seem to realize that it’s a problem that most of the content we are exposed comes from a single culture. As for the move, it’s totally useless, and if they wanted to be strong…

Why does it seem to be impossible for other cultures to compete with the Americans in the realm of movies, tv shows, music, etc.? Is it just a matter of money? Couldn’t the EU fund their own version of Hollywood?

It's actually not that hard to completely ban Hollywood from your watching for a while. Especially now with netflix and co. Honestly, from a German speaking pov, I don't see this being true anymore today.

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

#358

Post by Nyubis »

TX0098812 wrote: post #334
Avalaxy wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's an opinion, not a fact, and one that depends on who you ask and where. If you go to the Flanders region people will certainly tell you they speak Flemish. Language researchers can argue all they want about how languages should be grouped, but they sound different, they use different words, and people call them different things. It is simply incorrect to state that people in Belgium speak Dutch. Might as well j…

The language is Dutch, the collection of dialects spoken in the Flanders region is Flemish. If you're feeling charitable, you can refer to it as a language variant.

Here is the constitution of Belgium: https://www.senate.be/doc/const_nl.html Articles 2 and 3 define the Flemish (Vlaamse) community and region. Article 4 defines the language areas and specifically mentions Dutch (Nederlands), not Flemish.

See also: the Dutch Language Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Language_Union) being founded on a treaty between the Netherlands and Belgium.

For a language that's derived from Dutch but now its own proper language, try Afrikaans.

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

#359

Post by warrenm »

irrational wrote: post #286
throwaway-571 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m french and most of the content i watch is also in english, made mostly by americans with an american point of views and ways of resolving problems. Sometime in british english with british point of view. I think it’s sad that that you don’t seem to realize that it’s a problem that most of the content we are exposed comes from a single culture. As for the move, it’s totally useless, and if they wanted to be strong…

Why does it seem to be impossible for other cultures to compete with the Americans in the realm of movies, tv shows, music, etc.? Is it just a matter of money? Couldn’t the EU fund their own version of Hollywood?

Lots of countries compete well - India, Nigeria, the UK, France, Germany, Italy ...

But you're not going to find them in the US [much] if they're not in English

Here's some data from several years ago (couldn't find anything more recent in a quick scan) - https://screenville.blogspot.com/2009/06/production-world-ci...

Here's a related Quora post: https://www.quora.com/What-makes-British-television-at-least...

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

#360

Post by dada78641 »

throwaway-571 wrote: post #148
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…

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…

> Nobody speaks it in the EU

English is one of the two official languages of Ireland.

Either way, I think everything you've said is basically beside the point because English is the primary international language of the business and science worlds. That's why virtually all airports everywhere in the world have English signage and announcements, that's why many international university lectures are in English. It's very practical.

For better or for worse, that's how it is, and choosing another language based on some principle of neutrality (which certainly won't really be neutral, because anyone's definition of neutrality will be biased) is going against the flow. Something like Esperanto would actually be an especially terrible choice given that there's almost no one who speaks it and virtually no entertainment media that uses it, which makes it far more difficult to learn.

Learning languages is hard enough as it is. As someone who lived in Tokyo and studied Japanese full time, it's something you really need to be motivated for to make it work.

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