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Should English be the only official language of the EU?

de dbob, 2015-aprilo-15

Mesaĝoj: 29

Lingvo: English

dbob (Montri la profilon) 2015-aprilo-15 21:00:38

Interesting question at Debating Europe, a site dedicated to “take YOUR questions, comments and ideas directly to policy makers and experts for them to respond”. The word “esperanto” appears over 245 times among the more than 690 comments.
What do you think?

Tempodivalse (Montri la profilon) 2015-aprilo-15 21:44:48

If I'm not mistaken, English is the official language of only two of the EU's 28 countries: the United Kingdom and Ireland.

So I don't see how excluding the other 26 countries' languages is fair at the benefit of those two.

And no, not everyone in Europe speaks English, especially not at a seriously functional level - that's a common misconception by some monoglot anglophones who assume that everyone in the world knows English just because everyone in their (often monolingual) neck of the woods speaks English. That's an attitude of complacent superiority or just cultural ignorance.

Tempodivalse (Montri la profilon) 2015-aprilo-15 21:51:09

Additionally, it would be ironic if English were chosen as the official language of the EU, and then the United Kingdom subsequently decided to leave - as it has been considering for some time now.

Suzumiya (Montri la profilon) 2015-aprilo-15 22:39:10

I could agree on making English the official lingua franca provided that people don't forget their culture and mother tongue. English is already a very powerful language, all you need to do is change the approach, don't shove American and British culture down people's throats, speaking English doens't mean you're licking the US's ass; it's a language, it's a tool for communication and it can be seen as that without nationalism and linking it to the US, England or any other Anglophone country, Australia, Ireland, Kiwiland, etc.

orthohawk (Montri la profilon) 2015-aprilo-16 01:39:11

Tempodivalse:If I'm not mistaken, English is the official language of only two of the EU's 28 countries: the United Kingdom and Ireland.

So I don't see how excluding the other 26 countries' languages is fair at the benefit of those two.

And no, not everyone in Europe speaks English, especially not at a seriously functional level - that's a common misconception by some monoglot anglophones who assume that everyone in the world knows English just because everyone in their (often monolingual) neck of the woods speaks English. That's an attitude of complacent superiority or just cultural ignorance.
Just FYI, it's also official in Malta.

faust_twi (Montri la profilon) 2015-aprilo-16 03:07:07

we need one common language. no matter what. though it's first step. then we should modify that language to make it even better than esperanto.

lagtendisto (Montri la profilon) 2015-aprilo-16 07:15:41

Tempodivalse:And no, not everyone in Europe speaks* English, especially not at a seriously functional level ...
What level do you point to? What level is necessary?

* In my opinion its not only 'double-dutch-sh' English speaking, its proper interactive speaking (communication) also proper working in EU-wide 112 emergency call situation.

bryku (Montri la profilon) 2015-aprilo-16 07:32:23

English is not a choice. It is mandatory subject in most schools in Europe. Costs are astronomical, but everyone thinks that they are just necessary and there is no other way. In my opinion English is a very difficult language and only 3-5% of the learners will achieve good level, especially when they come from rich families. Nobody thinks of the poor.

"What level do you point to? What level is necessary?"

The level of freely expressing yourself.

Amike
Grzesiek

Duckwing (Montri la profilon) 2015-aprilo-16 08:53:02

English might not be the best possible common language, for both cultural and practical reasons, but considering that it already is the de-facto lingua franca in business all over the world it would be most effective to build on that rather than have a slew of different official languages in EU matters or try to make Esperanto (or some other international language) the lingua franca.

se (Montri la profilon) 2015-aprilo-16 09:16:25

Interesting, however, no mention of GRIN report, perhaps, this report is too old for the younger ones.

When mentioning about business English, which is not totally true that every where in the world is using English in the trading process, for example, the border of Malaysia/Thailand, they use Thai or Malay, similar to the China and Vietnam.

Esperanto is the best business language, a research was done in 1922, but, no other Esperanto business people, even the IKEF does again this research to see the time has moved the language away or still the best.

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