I see it as a different flavour of English. Every single flavour of English has its own distinction and incompatibility with the others, that's what defines it as its own thing.
A US or UK English speaker will face issues when talking with a Indian English speaker, or an Australian English speaker.
In practice we already use EU English, both in official documents and communications, and in casual exchanges. We just don't recognize it officially.
The document you share is using UK English as the standard to follow, which explain why there are some differences.
> This leads to less understanding, rather than more.
That leads to a common language WITHIN the EU, which is what we don't have currently. I mean, again, we do have European English, we just don't recognize it, and it isn't as spread as it could be. The differences with other forms of English are small enough to increase the general communication between EU citizens and other English speakers in the world, but as you said also comes with a few differences that can cause misunderstanding. I work in international environments with people from all over the world, we already face those issues and they aren't a big deal.
I think you're being very generous there in painting it as some kind of naturally occurring dialect of a culture.
> The document you share is using UK English as the standard to follow
Incorrect. It refers to and compares against Irish English and US English as well, as people would in fact normally understand it. It's not academic or prescriptive.
> In practice we already use EU English, both in official documents and communications, and in casual exchanges.
You can't convince me people are using contorted jargon like 'financial envelope' in casual exchanges with anyone.
These are the problems in practice:
> the European institutions also need to communicate with the outside world and our documents need to be translated – both
tasks that are not facilitated by the use of terminology that is unknown to native speakers and either does not appear in
dictionaries or is shown in them with a different meaning
It's not just a case of 'not recognising it officially' - nobody understands it and dictionaries (of any dialect) don't help.
What is the point of a dialect that only people writing reports, not reading them (the actual people they're governing), understands?
Ok, I see that you completely misunderstood what I'm talking about. I don't really care if the EU standardize a EU English based on translation mistakes present in official EU documents. For example the case you point to, "financial envelope" seems to be a direct translation from French (at least that's how it feels as a native French speaker). Drop it if you want, it's just a detail.
I'm talking about the way the language is used by European citizens.
No we mean the same thing. The Wikipedia article you posted even links to the report I posted as a reference for what they mean!
That’s an EU report, by the way, criticising EU English as confusing and not understandable by citizens of any country unless they’re EU officials. That’s not a useful shared dialect!
Again, you're talking about the EU officials, that's not something I would consider. You're also pointing to the report as an authority on the domain, but while it is an interesting document to start a discussion it isn't in itself something that dictates what is useful or not.
The reason to standardize European English would be to give the 400+ millions people living in the EU a common, shared language they could identify with. These people already use in their daily life a form of English that doesn't follow US or UK standards. It is obviously understandable by citizens, otherwise they wouldn't be able to use it. They are right now using this weird, bastardized version of English to do business, communicate with friends, with their families, etc. This European English is already a de-facto language used for communication between EU citizens. Instead of telling them to correct their use of the language because it fails to follow British standards, I would like this distinct form of English, as it is practiced, to be recognized.
And if that offenses British English speakers, then that's fine, they will adapt the same way they already do.
A US or UK English speaker will face issues when talking with a Indian English speaker, or an Australian English speaker.
In practice we already use EU English, both in official documents and communications, and in casual exchanges. We just don't recognize it officially.
The document you share is using UK English as the standard to follow, which explain why there are some differences.
> This leads to less understanding, rather than more.
That leads to a common language WITHIN the EU, which is what we don't have currently. I mean, again, we do have European English, we just don't recognize it, and it isn't as spread as it could be. The differences with other forms of English are small enough to increase the general communication between EU citizens and other English speakers in the world, but as you said also comes with a few differences that can cause misunderstanding. I work in international environments with people from all over the world, we already face those issues and they aren't a big deal.