A Single European Language?
Is it necessary? Is it possible?
Ladies and Gentlemen,
in this conference the desirability of introducing one single European language across the European Union will be treated. A first attempt to do this was made in the 19th century: the Esperanto was created. However, it was a failure. It turned out to be more difficult than expected, and few people actually learned it. The problem of an international language was so postponed, until the Great War, when British soldiers had to be able to understand and talk with French soldiers. One more time, no simple solution but to learn the foreign language was found. Nowadays communication has spread, people from different nationalities and languages meet every day. The whole European Union is made up of 25 different countries: the governance of it is very difficult, and many interprets are employed to guarantee the understanding between the members of the EU parliament.
A possible solution to the problem of the language in the European Union is the learning of English, as it is the most commonly spoken language on earth. Today, in nearly every school students learn English as a second language. In the future, some suggest, it might become the first language of every citizen of the EU. This, however, brings many complications as well. People recently born will have at first difficulties in communicating with older people. Centuries of literature and culture of countries whose languages have disappeared could be destroyed in a decade.
The problem of the language is one of the oldest problems in mankind. Romans and Greeks faced it before us. The sole certainty we have, is that we cannot introduce one single language without the huge losses in many fields such as economy and education.
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European
On April 15, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Don’t be fool. Do you really think that English will became the Single European Language spoken as first language by all the European Citizens?
But what world you live in?
Countries as France, Germany, Spain and Italy will oppose against that suggestion. FORTUNATELY.
It would be better to start learning languages as Spanish or French and forget those senseless ideas.
¡Viva el español! ¡Vivre le français! Viva l’italiano!
Long life to Roman Languages! Their beauty is the English jealousy.
Daryl
On April 26, 2009 at 6:03 pm
I think this is fundamentally a good idea. If we were to formulate a simple language based on the best parts of each of the official EU languages (i.e. simple grammar and logical phonetic type spelling), we could then put into national curriculums to be learnt as a second language, whilst retaining domestic languages as the first. If every EU citizen was fluent in the Single European Language – who knows if we could make, to paraphrase Mr Obama, a More Perfect Union?
Michael
On July 18, 2009 at 5:54 am
I think English will become the language of Northern Europe within 50 years, with local languages only being used at home and in schools.
At the moment in countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark a lot of Business is conducted in English and they are very comfortable with that, they have to be because these countries are very involved in International business and exporting their services.
They are also very comfortable watching TV in English.
Southern Europe is a different ballgame, they normally rely and a few big exporters and the countries keep to themselves mostly in business and even for holidays. Would not be surprised to meet French people who never left France. They see no need to be fluent in English, as far as they are concerned the whole world speaks French.
If English is ever to become the language of all of Europe it is a long long way in the future.
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