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.
Liked it
-
-
-
-
-
Post CommentEuropean
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.
George
On March 22, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Hello to all of you.
Please take a look at – http://www.une-europe-eine-lingua.eu
Thank you
Henk
On October 15, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Breaking News People! The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as ‘Euro-English’.
In the first year, ’s’ will replace the soft ‘c’. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard ‘c’ will be dropped in favour of ‘k’. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome ‘ph’ will be replaced with ‘f’. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling .
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent ‘e’ in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing ‘th’ with ‘z’ and ‘w’ with ‘v’.
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary ‘o’ kan be dropd from vords kontaining ‘ou’ and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.