Should German become the sole official language of the EU?
In the end they'll anglicize anyway. Just wait and wait. If a war would be imminent I don't think Flemings would declare it. No, I doubt this will happen.
Anyway, all respect for the French language, people don't want to Frenchify over here. If language has to get given up we'd rather Anglify (we could also Germanify).
However, seeing as there are linguistic tensions everywhere in Europe, not rarely accompanied by misplaced chauvinism. I'd probably end up Esperantofied anyway. Anglification will meet to much resistance I think, even though Brusselers and Flemings would probably accept it in the end.
Brusselers now already like to call their town Brussels instead of Bruxelles. Keep in mind that a high percentage doesn't have French as mother tongue, but only uses it as lingua franca. They can switch to English if necessary.
<<I only fear for the increasing arrogance of my compatriots who speak a language that is eligible to be one of these 6 languages.
"My language is a EU language and yours is Flemish patois." >>
You can answer them: "my language is descendant of native language of emperor Charles the Great,and yours language is descendant of mixed Vulgar Latin or Latin patois ".
Flemish is a EU language just like French.
Why should a nazi language have to do with "official" Europe? Europe should keep this shame far, furthermore it's an ugly language
I feel things are likely to stay as they are with the proliferation of official EU languages.
Language and culture being related as they are, I don't see nations voluntarily being part of a union that doesn't recognize their language unless they are a tiny minority and used to compromising on such things anyway.
One example being countries that were close to or part of the USSR. In all reasonable logic they should promote Russian, as this give them several advantages in communication with each other, the internet, and the world economy. Many times they do not though, despite the fact that most of these countries already had a decently sized Russian speaking population at the fall of the USSR, they feel that it encroaches on their culture and perhaps even their sovereignty to establish any sort of official Russian eastern European lingua franca.
The only fair solution to the problem is for everyone to learn a third language that isn't tied to any of those cultures or nationalities. Latin and Esperanto have both been talked about in this regard. Latin is difficult for many speakers with it's multiple cases, lack of modern words, and it's association with traditional learning techniques.
Esperanto is easy and regular, but it does have a few symbols added to it that are not in the normal Latin alphabet. It also has some detractors of it merely due to it's conlang status. Interligua might actually be a better choice for the EU anyway if a conlang is on the table for discussion.
It could also be possible to choose a natlang that has nothing to do with Europe, Japanese or Korean perhaps. Both have a rich literary, and media heritage. Neither would give a significant advantage to anyone learning in Europe but, I just don't see people taking the time to learn such different languages from their own.
I vote the EU accepts Toki Pona as it's new ligua franca, at least it would be easy to learn....
<<Latin is difficult for many speakers with it's multiple cases, lack of modern words, and it's association with traditional learning techniques. >>
Also Hebrew had a lack of modern words, and because of lack thereof they invented them (often stole them from Arabic) and changed some grammar. Modern Ivrite speakers cannot fluently read Biblical Hebrew, even though their language is derived from it. Just like Latin Hebrew used to have a medieval form after it's become a dead language, but it has been successfully revived and its speakers are far from geniuses.
Latin isn't difficult in its modern form once you rehype it. Cases aren't harder to learn than preposition to verbs. You can take modern words from existing Romance languages. Latin is a very regular language, despite its inflective character.
Classical Latin is difficult, and from there comes your bias, Modern Latin, however, doesn't have to be. But I agree, that language isn't successfully revived as of yet, but it's possible to learn it to an entire population and people would realise once existing proofs of Latinophones live on this Earth.
I personally think Russian would be even harder than this Modern Latin would. It sadly suffers from an "elitist" stigma to this day.
P.S.: I also like you idea to import some non-European language with a rich history, and develop an European variant of it. How would European Japanese sound?
<< Also Hebrew had a lack of modern words [...] You can take modern words from existing Romance languages. >>
Yes, and one should also remember that up until the early 20th century new words from science and technology were coined based on Latin-Greek vocabulary. Lack of vocabulary will not be a problem, as long as there is a recognized authority to give the initial push to get Latin in motion again.
Latin is a dead language. German is much better as lingua franca.
Franco Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:14 am GMT
Latin is a dead language. German is much better as lingua franca.
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English is ok for all, German is too complicated for many...
lanois Fri Dec 04, 2009 5:45 pm GMT
Flemish is a EU language just like French.
Baldewin Fri Dec 04, 2009 6:01 pm GMT
You mean Dutch.
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Isn´t Dutch = Flemish?
Franco, start learning it, then. You should start writing messages in German.....
<<Isn´t Dutch = Flemish?>>
Indeed, it is. Like Castillian = Spanish. So I shouldn't get annoyed by it. There are people who think Castillian is a different language too, which is isn't.
Once you force a huge population to learn a language and use it, any language becomes "easy", granted the educational system works. It must just produce a culture, and by worth something in the field of science, etc...
English plays this role very well, but is it neutral? Is it suitable for Europe? I'm skeptic toward this, how much I like English and respect its history.
Well 'force' is a big word, first the elite picks it up as lingua franca, and slowly but surely the lower classes follow. That's how such evolutions happen.