20 official languages in Europe in 2004

[Skylimit]

The point is that English is an awfull, politically repressive "solution" --

We could say that English is the "de facto" standard as second language.
Maybe it is because of the US supremacy : economically, military, and hollywoody. But choosing something else, would be unwise, because everybody speaks English.

Maybe, 50 years from now, the US will only be a shadow of what it is now ... and then automatically people will switch to something else
(maybe Chines, Japanese, German or Arabic ... whoever holds the cards)

[esperantisto]

Esperanto DOES have native speakers! AND it is only artificial in that it was created - just like modern Hebrew and Indonesian (there are other examples too), but nobody call them artificial.

[BossaNova]

Furthermore, Esperanto is *not* artificial!

Why not ?
Esperanto has no native speakers, and it's a language that someone invented some time ago...
So what is not artificial about it ?

I don't see any problem in calling Esperanto artificial, in fact this is the main advantage of this language..

although I don't speak it, I hope to learn in the future, and I prefer Esperanto to English, as the world language..


bn

[Tiger]

Esperanto DOES have native speakers! AND it is only artificial in that it was created - just like modern Hebrew and Indonesian (there are other examples too), but nobody call them artificial.

I don't hate Esperanto So don't understand me wrong.


Anywayz, where do they speak Esperanto as a native language ?
Is there a real country where there live people who speak only Esperanto ?
(apart from some freaks ? )
j/k :p

[esperantisto]

There are 3 concepts going on here:

1. native-ness: meaning that the language is the first one a child learned from its parents. There are lots of children born of Esperanto couples (sometimes whose only common language is Esperanto) - often Esperanto is the first language they learn from their parents. Sometimes it is even the only language they learn from their parents.

2. natural/artifical: this argument assumes that somehow most languages (usually national languages - see #3) 'naturally' developed as opposed to those which were 'artificially' created. In fact, all languages are artificial - some just more so than others.

3. nationality: most languages have a nation associated to them. The assumption is that this makes them natural and gives them native speakers. These are entirely independant concepts. It is like the old joke "a language is a dialect with an army."

[Tiger]

Well, maybe one day I'll learn Esperanto, but at this moment I just don't see any advantages about it....
I can talk to almost anyone, in either English or French, and here in the Benelux in Dutch.

I'm now learning some other 'fun' languages, just for fun without any real reason. (At this moment especially Finnish and Japanese)

But who knows, maybe one day I get the crazy idea to learn some Esperanto

[Dakkus]

In my opinion German would be the best solution.
Reasons:
1) It's already the widest spread native language in the EU. There are 450 million people in the EU (2004 is close enough to say this ;)), which of almost 100 million speak German as their national language. English in the other hand is spoken natively in only UK and officially in UK and Malta, so there are only about 60 million native English speakers. So, over 20% of us already speak German. Why would we use some other language? Those who speak a language natively sure speak it better than those who've learned it as a foreign language.

2) German is easier to learn than English. You can say that English is easier to learn than French (which doesn't seem to have a grammar) or Finnish (which has an impossible grammar), but so is German. And German is even easier to speak than English. The reasons are: The language is pronounced more the way it's written than English is. And: The language doesn't have that much exceptions. The only advantage in using English is that people in USA speak it and therefore the computers are written in it, too. But think what happens to the Internet when the whole Europe can speak German. There will surely be reeeal much German sites in the Internet and the computer programs will start to come with German translation. Then there won't be a need to know English anymore. Computers are anyway the only reason why English is as wide spread as it is nowadays. (you don't listen English in TV when you can read the text on the screen in your own language instead, do you?-))

Ok. So now the primary reasons have been said.
Then a few words against Esperanto or Spanish. Spanish isn't spoken widely enough in the EU. So that's not an actual option. Esperanto would in theory be a good option, but Europanto is better. I can read Europanto but not Esperanto although I've never learned either of them. That means Europanto is better if we want to use an artificial language. A good think in an artificial language would be that it would be based on logic -> easy to learn and use. But the problem with such language is that it's not spoken /anywhere/ so people might not be very enthusiastic to learn that language, you know.

So.. This is why I think the language should be German.

Then some reasons why there should be a common language everyone could speak. First thing I can think of is that the EU is becoming more and centralized - which is good since that's the most efficient way to go. But right now there are biiig problems with the centralizing. You see, no one informs the people about what's happening over there. So, no one knows. When there are news from Bryssel, always with a small print in the corner of the newspaper's page because the papers are interested only about things that happen in their own areas. When people don't know what's going on, the democracy of course can't work. The people can't decide about things they don't know about. So we need a common newspaper and other forms of common information medias that are not based on any single country of EU but on the whole EU. And that can't be done with local languages. When there are some local factors in the press, it makes it harder to be objective and the paper's always only "this area versus the rest of EU". So, we need out media to be (at least to some extent) in one language.

Another problem we have right now is the expensiveness of having 20 different national languages spoken in Bryssel. The translators really cost a lot of money and make conversation clumsier, as everything can never be translated perfectly especially not in real time..

The union should also feel more united. One way to achieve that is having a language _everyone_ in the union could speak. So, there should be one language that is compulsory to learn in _all_ countries of the EU.
I'm not saying the countries should do everything in only that one language - the national languages could - and should - still be kept as the primary ones in each country.
But we could do what we do here in Finland right now. When you are 13-year-old, you must start learning Swedish in school. Here in Finland everyone can speak enough Swedish to be somewhat able to communicate with other people in that language - although no one in Finland actually ever needs Swedish. We just learn it because we do.
The countries should also promote the common European (later on I'll just say "European", as it's easier to say) language as their secondary official languages. That would mean you couldn't get a job as an officer of some kind if you can't speak decent European. That's what we have here in Finland, too. It seems to work quite well. That way a Portuguese could go to a police office in Lithuania and report his/her handbag to be missing. And the police officer would understand because he/she couldn't get behind the counter if he/she didn't.

By this I don't mean that Estonians should speak European in the official this and that's. They could speak Estonian in Estonia. But they could also speak something with the random people in Poland or Slovenia or Austria. Wouldn't that be a good thing?

Translation between languages in the EU bureaus should be stopped. In inter-European conferences and other things like that every speech should be held in European, not in the speakers' native language. That's the only place where European would be the only used language.

With a common European language we could - and should - also drop the current secondary languages' compulsority as they're compulsory because everyone must understand each other. We could let the Swedes learn in Swedish in their schools (even in Finland) and the Finns in Finnish (only in Finland) but make European the compulsory language. Finns could still speak to Finland's Swedish people, just in European instead of Swedish. And sice they'd have more motivation to learn European (which would actually be useful), they could actually speak with Swedes better in European than they currently can in Swedish (just like we nowadays speak in English to our Swedish people).

Oh well.. I guess this is everything. I'll press the Submit button now :))

[Olivier]

In my opinion German would be the best solution.

After 7 years learning german, I am still not able to have a interesting discuss with anyone! German is a beautifull language, but desesperatly too hard for a Latin guy.

French has a very hard grammar, which looks like the italian one but with a germanic touch. French actually has strong greco-latin roots but has also integrated many germanic roots and uses.

I propose french!
- It's a language spoken in France, but also in Belgium and Luxembourg, a bit in Italy (and Monaco!). It's also the language in Québec! And people also speak french in Switzerland (as soon as the Swiss join Europe).
- It's already the official language for the Olympics!

But, you know... "les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus", as we say in casinos when the roulette starts. English has won the game for this century. For the future, maybe we should learn... chinese!

Olivier

[Olivier]

First thing I can think of is that the EU is becoming more and centralized - which is good since that's the most efficient way to go.

I don't think so. People of Europe don't want their countries to disappear. Federal way is the best!

When there are news from Bryssel, always with a small print in the corner of the newspaper's page because the papers are interested only about things that happen in their own areas. (...) So we need a common newspaper and other forms of common information medias that are not based on any single country of EU but on the whole EU. And that can't be done with local languages.

Yes, we need at last a european TV network! It's high time Europe gets a pan-European channel like Radio-Canada (TV) here!

Another problem we have right now is the expensiveness of having 20 different national languages spoken in Bryssel. The translators really cost a lot of money and make conversation clumsier, as everything can never be translated perfectly especially not in real time..

That's Europe! Everybody keeps his culture and can express himself in his own language! It's good. We have to deal with our diversity and millenaire cultures.

But we could do what we do here in Finland right now. When you are 13-year-old, you must start learning Swedish in school. Here in Finland everyone can speak enough Swedish to be somewhat able to communicate with other people in that language - although no one in Finland actually ever needs Swedish. We just learn it because we do.

Why swedish?

You can't oglige the Belgians to quit french or flamish for swedish or german.
The little French start to learn english in primary school, now.

That would mean you couldn't get a job as an officer of some kind if you can't speak decent European.

I would say 2 european languages.

In Quebec, people are obliged to be real bilingual. I have sometimes to speak english instantly at work, because the client I have wants to express in this language.
At the same time, when I come into a shop, I want to be served in my own language. So, people speak both. It's less true in the rest of Canada.
Bilinguism is very important in Canada.

[Gauss]

I have to smile about the last three posts.

In my opinion German would be the best solution.

I propose french!

First of all, there are few Germans who would have suggested German as officual first european language. (Did I get it right that this was the question you two wrote about?) Second, French is suggested by a native French speaker. This reflects a little the different esteem of people to their languages.

After 7 years learning german, I am still not able to have a interesting discuss with anyone! German is a beautiful language, but desperately too hard for a Latin guy.

C'mon. That post was written by a finnish user - and Finnish and German are a lot more distinct than French and German.

Not only because I'm native German speaker, I agree with Dakkus. However, there is not the least chance that this kind of proposal could ever be accepted. Just to mention two reasons for that:
1. General european history between 1870 and 1949. No need to comment this point any further.
2. Germans acceptance of some kind of English as almost second language in advertising, banking, music and other branches of everyday life. It's a little bold to write this, but I might doubt that Germans would accept German as common european language.

Isn't it ironic that the only English-speaking Euro country is Ireland?

Why swedish?

Because Finland is bilingual, at least as much as Canada.

[micro]

...
So.. This is why I think the language should be German.
...

It would definitely be a good thing to define a common European language in the way you proposed: Everyone learns "European" in school, and every member country becomes bilingual in a certain way (today's bilingual countries become trilingual). Having 20 different languages theoretically means 380 different translations (from every language into every other) necessary for every discussion and every document, done by at least 380 different translators.

German is not easy to learn. Even about 90% Germans make spelling errors in every sentence they write (this is my own estimation). Many Germans have problems with the grammar, and so have foreigners who learn German.

Europeans outside the German speaking countries could get tired of the EU if it would be dominated this way. That would theoretically also be true for any other language spoken in the EU. But English, Spanish and French are exceptions because they are spoken worldwide. German is spoken only in a very limited region. So English, Spanish or French would be better options.

English would be a good option. Not the Internet or computers made English widespread. It has been widespread before already. Almost all serious scientific publications are published in English. There are about 3 million book titles available in English from book dealers, but less than 1 million in German. There are even more English books in libraries. There are about 20 countries in the world that have English as official language, and almost 1000000000 people can speak it. English is difficult only because of its large vocabulary. But getting a start with it is easier than with many other languages.

[esperantisto]

This is exactly the argument for Esperanto. Easy, Neutral, and pan-european.

[Olivier]

I have to smile about the last three posts.

In my opinion German would be the best solution.

I propose french!

First of all, there are few Germans who would have suggested German as officual first european language. (Did I get it right that this was the question you two wrote about?) Second, French is suggested by a native French speaker. This reflects a little the different esteem of people to their languages.

That was a joke!

[Olivier]

After 7 years learning german, I am still not able to have a interesting discuss with anyone! German is a beautiful language, but desperately too hard for a Latin guy.

C'mon. That post was written by a finnish user - and Finnish and German are a lot more distinct than French and German.

Well, you are lucky not to have had the teachers that I had!
That was a catastrophy.

Not only because I'm native German speaker, I agree with Dakkus.

Nice idea for a poll!

However, there is not the least chance that this kind of proposal could ever be accepted. Just to mention two reasons for that:
1. General european history between 1870 and 1949. No need to comment this point any further.
2. Germans acceptance of some kind of English as almost second language in advertising, banking, music and other branches of everyday life. It's a little bold to write this, but I might doubt that Germans would accept German as common european language.

I think the point 1 is less and less accurate, because Today's Germany is very different from the XXth century Germany!
The point 2 makes the difference.

Isn't it ironic that the only English-speaking Euro country is Ireland?

Because Finland is bilingual, at least as much as Canada.

I have to read more about it. I am very ignorant of this.

Now, time to go to bed! It's almost 4 am! (but we don't work tomorrow, here).

[Antti]

Because Finland is bilingual, at least as much as Canada.

Actually not as much as Canada. These quotes from the CIA world fact book:
Canada:

English 59.3% (official), French 23.2% (official), other 17.5%

Finland:

Finnish 93.4% (official), Swedish 5.9% (official), small Lapp- and Russian-speaking minorities

Here Swedish is also very concentrated, there are many monolingual (swedish) areas in the coast and archipelago while most of Finland is Finnish only.