
EU must adopt ‘EU English’ as its official working language after Brexit (2017) - Creationer
https://www.european-views.com/2018/07/eu-must-adopt-eu-english-as-its-official-working-language-after-brexit-heres-why/
======
Al-Khwarizmi
I don't think English will stop being EU's lingua franca any time soon.
Agreeing on a replacement would be politically impossible (the Germans
wouldn't accept French, the French wouldn't accept German, the Spanish would
have good arguments to make in any of both cases); and having several
languages in equal status would just be not practical (you cannot
realistically expect every EU citizen to know their native language, French
and German, for example).

A "neutral" language like Esperanto is a nice idea, and I would also like
Latin as the EU language, as it can be argued to be the language that
historically shaped Europe the most. But let's not fool ourselves, no one is
going to stand for learning a new language from scratch (even if it's easy)
when English pretty much Just Works(tm), and provides a lot of utility also
outside the EU.

Personally, I'm from Spain and I'm not annoyed or upset about English being
the lingua franca. I think we should abandon the idea of English "belonging"
to its native speakers. When I talk to people from Germany, from China, or
from Vietnam, for example our common language is almost always English, even
if neither of us are natives. English is useful for us and belongs to us, as
much as to someone from Gloucestershire.

~~~
achamayou
French here, I absolutely agree. Specifically, American English would be
preferable because it is what’s spoken widely outside Europe, and its spelling
is somewhat more regular (as well as historically accurate!).

I wonder to what extent coming up with a new name for it would help adoption.

~~~
alexgmcm
The differences are trivial though?

The main difference is the accent (when I was staying in California as an
Englishman they couldn't understand me when I said "Kettle" and their
pronunciation sounded more like "Keddle")

But accents will always be an issue regardless of which language is chosen.

I think they should continue using English as it's pragmatic but also
introduce Esperanto as another working language and encourage its use (I used
to speak Esperanto and my Grandfather is fluent so I'm a bit biased I suppose)

~~~
afiori
Also the differences between American English and British English are
significantly smaller than the difference between Italian English and French
English or Chinese English.

------
peteretep
> It will rid the French or the Germans of the temptation try to make their
> language the dominant one in the post-Brexit EU

It really won't, especially the French.

~~~
tluyben2
Spain will fight tooth and nail as well. And Germany too. So no it really
won't.

~~~
inawarminister
I'm curious about Spanish objection to English _language_. Sure, they do have
the issue with Gibraltar and British "tourists" perenially, but is there any
effect for the language itself?

At least Spanish is spoken by an order of magnitude more people than German,
though (Latin America, and nowadays a third of USA as well)

------
peteretep
> the rest of the EU will be freed of the British veto and able to get as
> integrated as it wishes

Anyone who thinks that EU skepticism is exclusive to the Brits is in for a
nasty nasty surprise.

~~~
flexie
I think that by now everyone realizes that there are EU skeptics in all member
countries. There will always be.

Around 25 percent of Americans want their state to secede (1). A lot of
Italians want Northern Italy to part with Southern Italy. Spain has Catalan
and Basque separatists. The UK has Scotland, and perhaps even Northern
Ireland.

There are many people in many places that think they would be better off in a
more (formally) independent state.

For now, the EU skeptics are a small minority in most EU countries. I for one
hope it stays like that. The EU has shown remarkable unity when met with
Brexit.

1: [http://blogs.reuters.com/jamesrgaines/2014/09/19/one-in-
four...](http://blogs.reuters.com/jamesrgaines/2014/09/19/one-in-four-
americans-want-their-state-to-secede-from-the-u-s-but-why/)

~~~
jacquesm
Once upon a time Amsterdam was at war with other cities. What those people do
not realize is that the only alternative to further European integration is
another war, the more and the smaller the slices are the more certain that
future becomes. Just the UK seceding from the EU increases the chances of such
a thing happening tremendously.

~~~
antientropic
> the only alternative to further European integration is another war

False dichotomy. Surely the _same_ level of integration, or even a slightly
lower level of integration, will not necessarily lead to war. EU members were
already quite peaceful before the adoption of the Lisbon treaty, for instance.

And you should also at least entertain the possibility that integrating
populations further than they're willing to go increases the odds of conflict.

~~~
jacquesm
The same level would be fine but it is either the top of the hill or the
beginning of the downslope.

The EU made several critical mistakes in the way they approached their growth
and integration issues and those in turn could very well lead to a final
desintegration or split of the bloc. The UK leaving is a very bad sign, given
that they already had one of the most exceptional positions within the EU.

Time will tell.

Of course the integration 'by force' (Maastricht for one, Lisbon for another)
was utterly dumb, it feels to me as though they thought 'now or never' not
realizing that they may be planting the seeds for the eventual dismantling of
the union.

------
Jonnax
This doesn't really make sense. American English which they propose adopting
is removes more of the European roots of words.

For example removing the 'U' from words like Colour.

Ireland is also an English speaking country in the EU.

And I don't know how much of the sentiment of "Let's Americanise!" Would be
popular.

~~~
bitL
You probably don't know that 'u' in colour is a more recent British
development than the standard US English is based on. US English is more
original than the current British one.

~~~
lifthrasiir
Is it? Color was already spelled "colour" in the typical Middle English [1].
AFAIK the US development happened later to make all color-related words
consistent (since it was spelled "color" in Latin, and English has lots of
Latin-derived words).

[1] [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-
dictionary/dicti...](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-
dictionary/dictionary/MED8462)

------
kayoone
Living in working in the Berlin tech world, English is already the official
working language in most companies. Even as I german i have no problem with
this, my only gripe is that it makes it very hard for my non-german colleagues
to learn german.

~~~
7952
Why exactly is this? Are there really that many non Germans speakers that you
need to use English? And would you use English to have a chat at the water
cooler, or down the pub (or locally relevant alternative).

~~~
taejo
> Are there really that many non Germans speakers that you need to use
> English?

I'm not OP, but also at a Berlin tech company. I always say I'm glad I learned
German (in a much smaller city elsewhere in Germany) before moving here. You
absolutely _can_ learn German here, and I know people who have, but I also
know people who've lived here for years and don't know enough to buy a loaf of
bread in a bakery. The problem is that you can get away with it: your
colleagues can all speak English (and some of them can't speak Germany, in
some workplaces, including mine); as an expat, you probably live in a
neighborhood with lots of other expats, where the staff in restaurants and
shops speak English (and it's not uncommon for waiters to be unable to speak
German); you can make your friends exclusively in expat communities, and if
you arrive in Berlin speaking no German, that's a lot easier than integrating
into the local community without yet knowing its language. It's especially bad
if your accent gives away that English is your native language.

------
rofo1
The language of our time is English. There's just no disputing that. You can
argue that it's because US won the cold war, and then indoctrinated the world
via music and movies, and so on, and so on, but it doesn't change that fact.

We should adopt English and move on; majority of people know it and study it.
Why regress?

The point of using a language in the first place is to understand each other.

Everyone learning a new language that will just substitute English would be an
immense waste of time.

~~~
s_dev
It's vital small languages are preserved and that the world doesn't become
monolingual. Communication is a funny word -- we often mean it to commuincate
with others but often we communicate with ourselves in the present -- and to
our furture selves -- e.g. code comments are often for your future self as
well as other programmers.

People who speak different lanaguges litteraly "think differently" and
diversity of thought is absolutely essential to humanity progressing.

It's been positied that "Asians are better at math" because their languages
have a more logical naming system for numbers giving many a small early
advantage that accumulates over time. Other languges possess other attributes
that impart such advantages or disadvanges giving us diversity of thought so
that we can have new ideas about things and new perspectives.

~~~
r3bl
We could all cherish and love our own native languages internally while
relying on English abroad (and online). Those things aren't mutually
exclusive.

~~~
s_dev
What I'm saying is it's better that "some" people don't know English. I don't
know what number constitutes or what % of people but by having some people --
for lack of a better word -- "corrupted" by English will have new
perspectives. We need lots of languages and lots of combinations of these
languages for a healthy world.

I say this as a monoglot English speaker. I have some French and Irish but
both are very poor.

~~~
Isinlor
Languages drift apart, split and evolve. Even if by magic wand the whole world
would start speaking perfect English now, in 100-200 years we will most likely
have numerous versions of English. Each version would evolve depending on
different enclaves of people around the world.

------
Svip
I'm sorry, but this opinion piece sounds pretty dumb. It almost reads like a
troll post. The fact that so many in this comment thread seems to be
concurring with its suggestion is troubling enough.

If you really want to alienate the EU from the average EU citizen, make
English its official language. And adopt a version only a tiny minority really
speaks too, just to salt the wound! I'm not sure whether to be scared or
laugh.

The fact that the EU has 24 official languages isn't meant to make its
proceedings cumbersome or to necessarily facilitate national pride (although,
it's certainly also that!), but to make it available to the general public.
The official nature of all the member states' languages means you can submit
documents in all those languages.

Everyone on Hacker News speak English, but it's not a majority in the EU who
speaks or understands English comfortably. But it's easy to forget our
privilege. Even as younger generations get more and more accustomed to
learning, reading and speaking English around Europe, most are still more
comfortable reading technical, political and legal texts in their own
language.

They may understand the dialogue in Game of Thrones well enough, but can an
Estonian farmer understand an EU agriculture subsidy determination, if it was
written in English?

~~~
bryal
> Everyone on Hacker News speak English, but it's not a majority in the EU who
> speaks or understands English comfortably.

But a majority is comfortable with German or French?

Also, I can promise you that at least for Sweden, a vast majority of
population would prefer English being the official language of the EU to
something like French. We may not always be completely comfortable speaking
English, but it's a language just about anyone will understand with a little
effort.

~~~
Svip
I am not arguing for another language than English, but rather to maintain the
status quo and keep all 24 languages official. Including English, even if no
member state technically provides it. Which is probably what is going to
happen anyway, Brexit or no Brexit.

------
oytis
I'm surprised this document wasn't mentioned so far:
[https://www.eca.europa.eu/Other%20publications/EN_TERMINOLOG...](https://www.eca.europa.eu/Other%20publications/EN_TERMINOLOGY_PUBLICATION/EN_TERMINOLOGY_PUBLICATION.pdf)

Also, I would rather propose using Irish English as an official EU English
dialect after Brexit. Not as boring as the American one.

------
k_bx
Great idea, and I'd be more interested in EU English Locale. I'm Ukrainian,
and whenever I choose to have an English UI, I have a problem because U.S. and
GB are using a non-metric system. Canadian locale works, but it would be nice
to just have a common EU English one.

UPDATE: just checked, Ubuntu's United Kingdom uses Metric system actually, no
idea why was I thinking it'd be Imperial before.

~~~
rlkf
Try the Irish one; it is mostly sane, apart from not having dates in ISO
format.

~~~
k_bx
Thanks! Also, just checked, Ubuntu's United Kingdom locale uses Metric system
actually, no idea why was I thinking it'd be Imperial before.

------
rwmj
What problem is this trying to solve? Is it the cost of language interpreters?
That will probably soon be solved by technology. Is it the lack of a "demos"?
That would only be solved if everyone in the European demos also learned
English and all local politicians only spoke English, which is, ahem, unlikely
to happen ever.

~~~
Creationer
The point is that English is the de-facto single working language of the EU,
and the de-facto business and scientific language of Europe, and so it might
as well be made official.

If countries offered Government services including education in English, it
would hugely assist the movement of people and capital throughout the
continent.

Consider: you are from Spain, and have been offered a job at a great company
in Germany. You will speak English at the office and probably get around the
city speaking English. But: your children need to learn German, fluently and
immediately, in order to continue their schooling?

An official EU English would help pave the way for National Governments to
offer services in both the local language and English.

~~~
yorwba
There's nothing stopping national governments from offering services in
English right now. For example, [https://www.nelson-mandela-
schule.net/](https://www.nelson-mandela-schule.net/) is a bilingual (German
and English) public school in Berlin, where you could send your kids, assuming
they speak English well enough.

If on the other hand you want all services to be available in English
_everywhere_ , then I don't think that's a realistic expectation, since it
would require all public-facing government employees to speak decent English.

------
nnq
This is _brilliant!_ Finally there's the opportunity to adopt an _equalizing_
language that will also help _free us from national culture isolationism_ :

\- a language that is _nobody 's mother tongue:_ YEEEY!

\- language that is not attached to _any one culture:_ 10x YEEY!

Think about it! This could help _global_ not just European unity: all the
people of Asian and African origin who already speak fluent English could
instantly embrace and join in and start _building_ the new _pan-European_
culture that will grow into a _new and rich global culture_. Freed from the
tyranny of national-language-culture, this could be _the first truly global
culture Humanity has the chance to produce!_

One thing Globalism 1.0 did wrong was trying to _destroy_ culture. We know now
that this leaves a void that attracts trash like racism, xenophobia and
isolationism to get filled by these - _culture too abhors vacuum!_ Now
Globalism 2.0 can start right in the EU by _constructing_ a _new culture_
around a language that is nobody's own, at least on the cultural front. If
this would ever work it will coagulate around it a new literature, then media
etc. And finally we'd have a non-trash _global culture_ that will be able to
keep us united enough to properly address global issues like pollution and
climate change!

</dream>

~~~
Thimothy
The part I like best about your utopia is the irony that it leaves all native
english countries out by design.

"Thanks for giving us this tongue that has allowed us to transcend as humans,
now GTFO"

~~~
nnq
Anglo-american culture did enough appropriation itself... no reason to feel
bad for appropriating its language :P

(Though, tbh, "international high-English" as spoken has a very _latin_
vocabulary, with non-native-English speakers often choosing the latin variant
of words instead of the "native UK/US" phrasal verbs and such, eg. _" we're
accelerating"_ instead of _" we're speeding up"_ or _" we're gaining up
speed"_, _" inadequate"_ instead of _" unfit"_, _" superfluous"_ instead of _"
useless"_ etc. Not sure if to love or hate it, mostly loving myself it I
think, but it's interesting and sort of contributes to more precise/explicit
communication.)

------
tluyben2
Pick a language, any language, but adopt it as official. It won't happen
though. Germany, France, Spain, Italy and even Belgium are all way too proud.
I am, for instance, a big fan of the Flemish language and the German language,
but it is just not practical to keep them if you want to promote a united EU.
But being Dutch I am for cooperation/trade; many people do not think like that
and think their language and ways are vastly superior and should be adopted
instead.

~~~
lucb1e
Fellow Dutch speaker here. Why in the world are you a big fan of our language?
Just because it's your own? And German, just because it's so close? Both
languages are horrible to learn compared to English.

~~~
tluyben2
I am a fan because I like them in a literary sense. I enjoy reading Flemish
writers (Hubert Lampo, Hugo Raes) and German writers; I like the way sentences
are built up and how they sound. I like Dutch less than Flemish, especially
A.B.N. I find quite horrible these days. We bastardized our language too much
in my opinion and our Belgian neighbors have always tried to prevent that.

But my point was (typing on mobile so maybe I skipped a beat there) that
although I like these languages, I think they are indeed impractical and we
should just adopt English or Mandarin.

Edit: also, where does that statement 'horrible to learn' come from? Honest
question; I'm not sure how it works; not trolling here. We (the Dutch) are
quite lenient with languages and I know why I am anyway; my German is as good
as my English and my French and it did not take much effort learning these. I
was not a very smart or particularly hard working student but when I grew up
there was UK television, German television (the best of the bunch), Dutch
television, Belgian television (was very good and original compared to Dutch
tv as well, and with shows like Undercover very much back in the game) and
French television; I learned most of my practical languages from watching
scifi and horror when I was a kid.

~~~
lucb1e
> where does that statement 'horrible to learn' come from?

I had French, English, German, and Dutch in school. I'm a native Dutch
speaker. English was easier than any other language. I'm pretty sure my
English grammar is better than my Dutch right now. I mostly understand the d/t
rules in Dutch by now, but I'm not always certain. French, German, and Dutch
classes kept introducing lots of random rules that serve no purpose. At the
end of high school, the only language I could hold a grammatically correct
conversation in was English and my native language, and write a grammatically
correct text only in English (not Dutch, or at least not without avoiding
certain rules by rewriting sentences).

English classes also introduced some silly random rules at first, but once you
get beyond the a/an, learn a hundred or so irregular verbs, and a few other
such things, you're mostly done and it's just vocabulary and
expressions/sayings left. You can't really get around the latter, but the
former can be kept as small as possible (only the useful features like
indicating possessiveness or plurals, not differentiating between whether the
object you're speaking about is {male, female, neuter} × {active, idle,
giving, modifier}). And the German sentence structure is more convoluted than
necessary (I forgot most of my French, maybe theirs too), plac[1] the second
part of a split verb so far at the end of the sentence with lots of words and
qualifications in between that you lost track of what came before when you
finally reach the end of the sentence especially if you can't really read
German fluently [1]ing, but maybe that just takes some getting used to.

------
acd
Adopting English as the main working language would save a lot of costs in EU
from translations. Also one could have German, French and Spanish as side
languages. The smaller EU countries will have to accept English as main
working language.

In many international business settings in Europe English is the norm. Why
should politics be different?

~~~
levosmetalo
There are many reasons why using English makes sense, but saving costs on
translation is just not that.

Unless you are bilingual the lost productivity of having to use non native
language in business context would easily dwarf any cost savings, due to
misunderstandings, miscommunication, not "Punkt genau" documentation etc ...

Heck, anyone can just try to do an IQ test in non-native language and see how
the score drops.

------
Zrdr
If we want to use only one official working language, it should be Esperanto.
This would be neutral for any country (including Ireland and Malta). This
would not be a threat to other languages and cultures.

Esperanto is easier to learn than any naturally evolved language. Its benefits
are clear, it only needs a political support to thrive.

~~~
lifthrasiir
Let's get your facts straight:

> Esperanto is easier to learn than any naturally evolved language.

...only for many Indo-European speakers.

~~~
skohan
Esperanto was designed to be easy to learn and to lack many of the special
cases and "gotchas" present in every natural language.

There are probably many cases where it would be easier for a native of some
language to learn a specific similar language (i.e. for a Dutch speaker to
learn German, or a Portuguese speaker to learn Spanish), but I would not be
surprised if Esperanto minimizes the cost function for the net effort required
for all native speakers/all second languages.

~~~
lifthrasiir
(While Zamenhof tried hard, unfortunately,) False.

\- The vocabulary is a big part of the language learning and it is hard to
even begin with when the target vocabulary resembles nothing in your original
tongues. It can be probably argued that ESL learners can learn Esperanto more
quickly, but it still represents only about 1/4 of the total human population.

\- Rhotic consonants are particularly hard to pronounce correctly even for
many ESL learners, and yet Esperanto retains them.

\- Esperanto by itself does not have a word order, but it does have a
preferred word order of Subject-Verb-Object which is equally probable as
Subject-Object-Verb but much more familiar to Indo-Europeans.

\- I think Esperanto, in spite of its original premise, has picked idioms and
phrases up as well, as common in every old enough language.

It is now widely accepted that the difference between the native tongue and
the target language greatly impacts the learning curve. If Esperanto does
succeed, it would not be due to the easiness, because the easiness would be
highly subjective.

~~~
Oreb
> \- The vocabulary is a big part of the language learning and it is hard to
> even begin with when the target vocabulary resembles nothing in your
> original tongues.

While this is true for Esperanto, it is also true for any other language,
natural or constructed. And the idea of Esperanto is to reduce the effort
learning vocabulary not through familiarity, but by deriving its vocabulary
from a minimal set of roots and a system of suffixes. In Esperanto, if you
know the word for "big", you automatically know how to say "small", "huge" and
"tiny". This is not the case in most natural languages.

Of course Esperanto will be much easier to learn for someone who already
speaks some Germanic or Romance language than to anybody else on the planet.
But even to a monolingual Chinese (or whatever) speaker, I believe building a
working vocabulary in Esperanto is going to take less effort than in English,
Spanish or German.

> It can be probably argued that ESL learners can learn Esperanto more
> quickly, but it still represents only about 1/4 of the total human
> population.

But far more than 1/4 of the total population of _Europe_, which is the only
thing that matters in the context of this discussion.

~~~
lifthrasiir
> In Esperanto, if you know the word for "big", you automatically know how to
> say "small", "huge" and "tiny". This is not the case in most natural
> languages.

Oh? I have heard that "granda" means big, "giganta" or "kolosa" means huge and
"eta" means tiny... :-)

Of course I know what you want to say. One can derive "malgranda" (non-big,
i.e. small), "grandega" (more-big, i.e. huge) or "malgrandega" (tiny) from a
single root "granda". But that alone does not explain all other words! For
example, the Zamenhof's original dictionary [1] lists both "grand-" and "et-"
as root words while "gigant-" or "kolos-" are missing (probably later
additions, haven't checked). Why the heck do you need to know both "grand-"
and "et-" when one is an antonym to the other? [2]

I'm not an esperantisto and I'm not able to discern the nuance behind all
those different words, but I see a sign of the mature language here: once
regular, now naturalized. It is not necessarily bad and the artificial origin
can still help learning, but I would be rather careful to claim that it is
"easier to learn than any naturally evolved language". And that leads to...

> But far more than 1/4 of the total population of _Europe_, which is the only
> thing that matters in the context of this discussion.

You have said universally, even though you didn't seem to realize it. And even
when we concentrate to Europe, the actual number of ESL learners is not too
different: 38% [3].

But yeah, most Europeans can speak either Romance, Germanic or Slavic
languages [3] that form the Esperanto grammar and vocabulary. Still, in the
same census most Europeans seem to be much more interested in ESL than others
[4] and it would be very hard to convince them to learn Esperanto instead.

[1] [http://www.akademio-de-
esperanto.org/fundamento/universala_v...](http://www.akademio-de-
esperanto.org/fundamento/universala_vortaro.html)

[2] Of course, the answer is that it isn't. "et-" is described as "marque
diminution, décroissance" i.e. "marks decrease or reduction" and not strictly
an opposite of "grand-". It is therefore a fault of fellow esperantistos to
use it as "tiny"! </joke>

[3]
[http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/e...](http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_sum_en.pdf)
(2006, p. 4)

[4] Ibid., p. 9

------
singularity2001
Be encouraged by other countries such as Pakistan and India in which English
is already 'co-official':

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_w...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_where_English_is_an_official_language)

Please also combine anglic with a conservative spelling reform: color,
beautyfull, burocracys, enouf, allready...

Basically look at the most common spelling mistakes and chose those variants
which are more logical than the current spelling.

The language should be called Anglic/Anglish, after the

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angles)

It's already more of an ethnonym than a loconym. And ethnonym more in the
sense of shared language and culture than common genes.

~~~
Thimothy
Man, I would vote for life whoever proposed to fix english spelling. The fact
I can't use in conversation many words I have learned reading because I have
no idea how are spelled is my biggest grudge with the language.

------
new_here
I was raised to use British English spelling. Honestly, without any offence
intended, whenever I see words like 'color', 'organize', 'oriented' and so on
my mind sees it as a lazy (for lack of a better word) interpretation of the
original word's spelling that has evolved in the US. I don't think the content
has any less merit because of it, the authors are following the American
convention. Just saying that because I'm curious as to what American's think
when they read British spelling?

Also, whenever I write CSS and type 'color', I think, this was developed in
America so they have complete right to spell it however they damn well please.

~~~
seszett
> _whenever I write CSS and type 'color', I think, this was developed in
> America_

Well just so you know, it was mainly developed on the Franco-Swiss border (at
CERN) by Norwegian, Dutch and English citizens.

The largest role of America in CSS is influencing the spelling because of its
cultural weight, but not developing the language.

~~~
new_here
Interesting, thanks for the correction!

------
pergadad
Better to stick with Irish English, which is ready the transition point. We
could rename it European English jf that helps, but creating a new one would
not be in anyone's interest and practically impossible: e.g. who would be the
"European English" trainers? And would the EU just adopt the English
dictionary and grammar the same way the UK adopted all EU legislation as own
legislation for post-brexit? Just doesnt make sense.

------
viach
Great idea actually. There is also "Eastern EU English" extremely popular in
Ukraine, Poland etc, should probably be adopted officially as well.

~~~
teekert
We also have Dunglish [0]! Actually we get around easily using it in Eastern
Europe!

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunglish](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunglish)

------
mekoka
Looking into the history of American English hints at why it's so powerful. It
was _designed_ for pragmatism over elitism, to favor a broad adoption of a
writing system for a population of then recent immigrants, many of whom were
not native English speakers or had had little access to education. Its
original purpose is practicality. It only gradually became considered a viable
intellectual alternative to British English with the output of American
literature, from writers who were educated with it.

Most of that revolution is attributed to Noah Webster. To give some example of
how it just made sense, he favored "or" over the British "our" in words such
as "color" and "odor", "ter" over "tre" in "theater" and "center", "z" over
"s" in "civilization" and "analyze", "e" vs "ae" in "archeology" (Brits write
it "archaeology") and "paleontology" ("Palaeontology"). And many more.

~~~
antientropic
I don't get it. How is a word like "civilization" less elitist / more
pragmatic than "civilisation"? How is that a revolution? Is there any evidence
that these minor spelling difference had an effect on the success of American
English?

~~~
mekoka
Because 'z' is unambiguous. If it sounds like a 'z' it must be a 'z'.
Especially from the perspective of a non-native speaker, or someone who needs
to learn to read and write as an adult.

As for your other questions? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-
language_spelling_refo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-
language_spelling_reform). Also feel free to look up specifically Noah
Webster.

------
koonsolo
I don't understand why they didn't try to unify the English language across
the borders. Why are there different official variants of the same language?

I'm from Belgium and speak Flemish, our neighboring country is the
Netherlands. We officially speak the same language. We have the same spelling,
same rules, etc. Of course there are dialect variations, but the official
language is exactly the same.

I always wondered why other countries don't try to do the same. For example
Slovakia and Czech Republic. It almost is exactly the same language, and I
know Slovaks were able to understand Czech. But it seems newer generations are
unable to do that. So it's weird that these languages evolve away from each
other, instead of towards each other.

The world is becoming smaller every day, so why not try to standardize at
least the English language, which is mostly used in international settings?

But I guess it's also an ego thing, where neither UK or US (No idea which
official variant they use in Australia/New Zealand) want to adopt the other
countries rules.

------
jacquesm
It should, but as recently as April last year a French Ambassador decided that
English wasn't good enough for him:

[https://www.politico.eu/article/english-only-try-au-
revoir-f...](https://www.politico.eu/article/english-only-try-au-revoir-
french-ambassador-tells-council-philippe-leglise-costa/)

Petty squabbles such as these diminish the EU.

~~~
Xylakant
> French Ambassador decided that English wasn't good enough for him

You left out one important word: "only". Traditionally, all important meetings
and records in the EU are translated into the major languages, some of them
are available in most, if not all official languages. That makes it easier for
all european citizens to read the actual records. English might be widely
spoken, but fluency varies massively among the population. There's an argument
to be made that this makes sense. I certainly wouldn't trust quite a few
german politicians to negotiate in english, given the lack of grasp on the
language that some have repeatedly demonstrated.

~~~
erk__
It is pretty known that the parliment have an army of translators. Both live
translating and translating law documents into most languages.

~~~
Xylakant
Absolutely. But the decision that the Ambassador objected to was to use
english-only for the records. And citizens don't have access to that army of
translators and might be interested in the records too.

~~~
jacquesm
The same held for _all_ the other countries. Except for the UK of course.

~~~
Xylakant
Well, I have no objection on english being the de-facto lingua franca. But my
position on english being the only official language is certainly not as
simple. And the same is true for german, french or any of the other official
languages of the EU - neither of them are or should be the only official
language in such a multilingual construct as the EU. So I share the
ambassadors rejection of the notion to only use english and I do not regard
that as pettiness harmful to the EU. Sure, translation costs money, but it
also makes records more accessible to the citizens, and I regard that as a
good thing.

~~~
jacquesm
My country (NL) isn't small enough to have a realistic demand that everything
be translated into Dutch as well. That means that for us here adaptation
rather than rejection is the norm. To see other countries' representatives
storm out of meetings because their linguistic preferences are not followed is
one of those things that show me that the EU still has a very long way to go.

To 'only use English' is not a dictate, if the French ambassador felt the need
to have a French translation of the document then I'm sure he could have had
one as fast as pens could write. The citizens of France have every right to
access the proceedings but I really fail to see how they were denied that
right by having the situation as sketched transpire. Besides that, leaving the
meeting for sure had an effect against the French citizens' interest,
effectively they were unrepresented and the damage of that action far
outweighs the inconvenience of translation.

~~~
Xylakant
I see your point, but I’d prefer if that was resolved in a different way. I’m
absolutely in favor of translating all important records to all official
languages in the EU.

~~~
jacquesm
So am I, but that was not infringed on. The EU already gave French, German and
English a head start. Your typical Czech, Italian or Spanish representative
would have a much better position to make that case than the French
ambassador.

------
BlueTemplar
And make official the EU being just an USA colony (see IT companies), just as
the American Empire itself is waning. Such a _wise_ move !

Meanwhile, Macron's proposal is impressively hypocritical(/real-political?),
considering how much he has done to pump up English and diminish French...

~~~
sgift
Using a common language in the EU makes the EU a US colony ..? Because we
share the same language as the US then?

~~~
BlueTemplar
No, it's not just about that, I mention it too (and the FA too, in a
roundabout way). Why exaggerating what I said ?

------
BjoernKW
I've had a similar idea for some time now, albeit without the unnecessary
focus on American English: With the UK probably - and very unfortunately -
leaving the EU the latter could adopt English as its main language without any
unfair advantage to one of the larger EU countries or hurting national
sentiment.

I'd even go as far as to propose adopting English as the main language for
legal matters, public administration, business and education in each of the EU
member countries.

The language barrier is the predominant obstacle preventing a closer
integration between EU countries and collaboration between businesses across
borders.

A single, unified language over time could remedy that problem.

~~~
perfunctory
> With the UK probably and very unfortunately - leaving the EU the latter
> could adopt English as its main language without any unfair advantage to one
> of the larger EU countries or hurting national sentiment.

This is exactly the point the article makes.

------
Rerarom
Why not just adopt Esperanto? You can learn with minimal effort to read it in
less than half a year. And I suppose listening skill would come naturally if
one would have daily news programs in it.

------
antirez
In case we move away from English, the only thing that makes sense IMHO is
Spanish, because it is very easy to pick up for most other latin-derived
language speakers, and has an amazing amount of speakers worldwide. Moreover
is not very hard. If EU goes for English, I totally agree US english is the
best. It's phonetically simpler and more understandable, and is much more in
the artworks we consume: TV series, music, movies, ...

------
thefounder
It should develop its own language, easier to spell and write perhaps taking
advantage of machine learning etc during development. Something like Esperanto
that is not owned by anyone but is easier to learn by everyone(within EU).

English gives an unfair advantage to native english speakers not to mention
that it has a lot of legacy stuff that makes it hard to learn. Non-native
speakers will always be seen as outsiders/2nd class.

~~~
tluyben2
But everyone already speaks it. When I moved to Spain (from NL), I was
flabbergasted about the level of English here; even the English teachers were
impossible to understand. But now it is rapidly changing. Same in France and
Germany. When I start speaking English to someone now in either of these
countries, they generally understand.

> Non-native speakers will always be seen as outsiders/2nd class.

Not in my experience. But how would you measure that; in my personal
experience, the Spanish and Brits treat my wife and me like their own.

~~~
thefounder
>>> Not in my experience. But how would you measure that; in my personal
experience, the Spanish and Brits treat my wife and me like their own.

Of course you can measure that! Try to get a job where communication and/or
"presentation" skills are important(i.e lawyer, PR, media, investment banker
etc)and see how it goes. Even the accent may cost you the job. The language
skills are a handicap for any non-native speaker in the job market and not
only.

~~~
tluyben2
That is still what you say; I do not see much proof of that. I work in banking
and deal with much of what you say and I meet too many Dutch guys in those
positions to think there is an issue. I was looking more for an objective
measurement instead of a gut feel we both have.

~~~
thefounder
What about this measurement: how many TV presenters speaking "broken english"
have you seen in the UK? or broken spanish in Spain or broken dutch in
Holland? I believe the number is close to zero.

------
danieltillett
I have wondered for awhile if it is possible to have a world language - not
that the world couldn't all agree (or be forced) to choose a common language,
but that any single language spoken by 7.5 billion people would immediately
start to fragment or the pace of change would be so fast you couldn't talk to
your grandparents.

~~~
inawarminister
It should be possible if all 7.5 billion are connected to a world-spanning
Network and produce and consume similar media.

Hollywood movies and pop music already proved this after all. And for the
youngsters, video games and memes.

------
LargoLasskhyfv
_Jou känn pry mei näytiff djörmänn from mai cold däd häntz! Yawollja!_

Echt jetzt? Oh, really?

Why no fucking Esperanto, or Marain, Klingon, Elfish?

------
Lucadg
Language is open source. English does not belong to the UK anymore as much as
Tiramisu doesn't belong to Italy or http to Tim Berners-Lee. People created
these standards, let people use them, improve them and have a better life.
[Edit: spelling]

------
akvadrako
If you think _Esperanto_ is the better choice for EU's official working
language, sign the petition here:

[http://e-d-e.org/?lang=en](http://e-d-e.org/?lang=en)

------
ktpsns
So what's the definition of EU-en, compared to US-en or UK-en? I know the
differences between US-en and UK-en, but I'm lacking facts about EU-en.

~~~
aarroyoc
Metric system, date formats, currency... are the first things they pop in my
mind

~~~
ktpsns
Oh. I thought about written language, not about localization (as it comes up
when being used in graphical user interfaces). As a non-native speaker in
science, we always write out units (3 km or 3 miles), we write out dates
clearly (July 2nd or 2018-07-02), the same with units (USD 3 or 3 EUR). As a
non-application-writer, I don't see the point. As a programmer, I do, of
course.

------
sorisos
I have long wished for a EU-en locale. Perhaps one day...

~~~
anoncake
On Android, the language can be set to English (accented). Alas, that's just
for testing Unicode support.

------
pvaldes
Chinese would be even better

~~~
BjoernKW
Just because it's spoken by more native speakers than any other language that
doesn't automatically make Mandarin more relevant in a global context.

English is a global language due to its history (largely grounded in the
British Empire's colonial history). Mandarin on the other hand in a global
context as of today is still largely irrelevant because it's only spoken in
one country, even as that country is as globally relevant as China.

That might change in the future but unless you specifically deal with China
and Chinese businesses Mandarin is no more relevant on a global level than -
say - Russian or German.

~~~
Creationer
Chinese is tonal and cannot be typed into a computer without going through the
Pinyin intermediary stage. It is fundamentally ill-suited to being a modern
global language.

------
lucb1e
Finished the article but I haven't seen a single proposal of _what_ this
actually would mean. EU English would be different how? And that's besides the
fact that I also have yet to hear a single real advantage for forking the
language and creating 15 competing standards.

Reasons like "then it's fair for everyone" doesn't make any sense when the UK
is gone anyway, it would make sense _right now_ since one country has an
advantage, but not after brexit.

> It will be taking advantage of [the current] situation [since it] is already
> spoken by pretty much everybody.

Is the author saying it's more difficult to read or write british english than
it is to read an as-of-yet-undefined EU english?

> It will rid the French or the Germans of the temptation try to make their
> language the dominant one

Right, once we adopt a currently fictional en_EU, they'll know they lost the
battle. But the same would be true if we adopt de_EU or fr_EU or keep en_UK.
Whatever decision is made, it won't lessen any discussion until said decision
has been made.

> It will rid the Europeans of some of the oddities of British English which
> make it a tiny bit more complex

You mean adding silent letters to words like 'color' (colour) or 'no' (know)?
To make the letters match the pronunciation, it needs an overhaul quite a bit
larger than switching away from british english.

> It will give the Europeans some “closure” with the Brits

 _frowns_

> It will give the EU a chance [words words words] to finally make widely
> understood some of the terms and notions that are specifically EU / European
> but are nowhere to be found in British or American English.

Like what? I have no idea what the author is talking about.

> It will give the EU a chance [words words words] to gain a stronger popular
> culture position on the world stage.

I think our various languages add a lot of culture rather than forking
English. (Though I'd personally rather be rid of all the languages: fewer
language is more convenient than yet another language.)

> It will further enable the EU’s communication with the entire rest of the
> world

Surely you're joking. Speaking a different language just for the sake of it
helps international communication how?

> because guess what (working) language they already speak[: English]

... precisely, so why change it?

> expressions, idioms, etc. can be too specific, or “too British” [words words
> words], quite often those might be misunderstood or even completely missed
> out. Occasionally, that might be true of American English as well, but to a
> substantially lesser extent.

This is approaching sense. So let's have some examples? Because I still have
no idea what the author is talking about, even if 80% down the article I did
find the first and only sensible reason, assuming the mentioned understood-by-
the-British-only expressions, idioms, etc. exist.

I'm wondering if this post is satirical or serious. Could be that I'm playing
amazingly deep on someone's joke, but the other comments seem to treat it as a
serious idea... not sure.

~~~
781
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English#Examples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English#Examples)

~~~
lucb1e
It's an existing thing? Interesting, I never heard of it. Thanks for linking.

The Wikipedia article isn't very clear on what the language officially is. I
don't see where I can find a reference of the changes it makes, aside from a
few examples of ways to make English mainly more like French. It honestly
looks as though it is just an excuse for people to use words incorrectly just
because they have words in their own language that sound similar but mean
something else.

~~~
781
You are reading too much into the article.

The EU will never officially name this "EU English". They will just name it
"English", and at most they might point to a "guide" of what some commonly
used phrases which differ from British English mean.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> More specifically, Brexit’s silver lining for Europe might have to do with
unleashing the deepening of European integration in a whole bunch of areas
where the Brits have been reluctant to go. After Brexit, they won’t have to,
and the rest of the EU will be freed of the British veto and able to get as
integrated as it wishes.

Nice- a little controversial barb hidden in a larger, already controversial
(but less so) article. Who is this Ivan Dikov? He sounds like a man who likes
to stir the pot just to watch it boil over.

(Not that I don't fully agree with him, mind- but it's still a controversial
and rather mean opinion).

~~~
jcbrand
I don't see anything particularly mean about that quote and it's definitely
not the first time I've heard this argument brought up (that EU can continue
with further integration without UK obstructionism).

