While English is still the de facto lingua franca, with the US burning bridges to Europe like there’s no tomorrow, and the UK having left the EU, should they adopt an easy-to-learn auxillary language?
I’m thinking of an language like Esperanto, but not necessarily that. I was intrigued by Esperanto and went through the course on lernu.net and found it easy to pick up (though I am by no means fluent yet). While it is constructed, it was developed without any modern linguistic knowledge, so another option could be to construct a new language for this purpose, or adopt another already developed language that would serve the purpose better (I don’t have an overview of what is out there).
I know there are several official languages already, but I imagine that leads to a lot of overhead. An auxillary language could make communication easier, and make it easier for citizens of any member state to participate in the Union, and would to some extent remove any power asymmetry resulting from native mastery of a language.
Good idea? Poor idea? Why? Why not?
I fully support returning to Latin. Dulce est desipere in loco!
Apparently Esperanto was considered at one point by the League of Nations, I wonder how popular it would be now if it was adopted
Everyone speaks English all around the world. I’m cool with that, would rather our kids learning it from kindergarten on than learning some random new language that’d be useless anywhere else. People can still keep their native tongue & stuff, idc, just make the whole EU English speaking
Because creating a new language, “European”, is going to be perceived as an attack on their identity by a lot of people. It fundamentally changes what “European” means.
Using English or French can be tolerated as a practicality that predates the EU.
https://xkcd.com/927/ Just replace “Standards” with “Languages”
English is a piss simple language to learn that the vast majority is already speaking. No need to overthink here. Also if you look at the regulatory side: Eu Government Documents are already always available in all languages spoken in the EU. So any legal barrier is non existent
English is a bad option for an IAL imo, and I dislike how it has become so dominant in this aspect, Esperanto has its own flaws however, if the EU were to adopt an IAL there would have to be a lot of considering
Hehe, that one is often suitable, and I think it fits nicely here.
I don’t count English as a particularly easy language to master. Do you not think there are some problems that arise from assymetry in ability to learn English? Not just thinking about legal documents, but debates, discussions, negotiations etc.
And is this massive amount of translation not just very inefficient? Although I suspect at best a new language would come in addition, so we’re back to the xkcd-strip and nothing was solved there.
Do you not think there are some problems that arise from assymetry in ability to learn English?
Since the UK left (and Ireland and Malta being the only ones left speaking English natively I think) this problem got less problematic. If it is a foreign language almost for all, the differences are not that big.
Artificial languages have the problem that they will end up being spoken only by an elite, which would be highly problematic for the EU, which is already seen as an elite project by all too many people in the EU.
Since the UK left (and Ireland and Malta being the only ones left speaking English natively I think) this problem got less problematic. If it is a foreign language almost for all, the differences are not that big.
Good point, but I am not so sure the UK (or even England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland separately at some point) won’t rejoin in the future.
Artificial languages have the problem that they will end up being spoken only by an elite, which would be highly problematic for the EU, which is already seen as an elite project by all too many people in the EU.
Yes, that is definitely a danger, but of course - the easier it is to learn, the more likely anyone could pick it up. However, I do think it would have to be learned in schools across the entire Union for it to work. Learning Esperanto first allegedly increases a student’s ability to learn other foreign languages, so it would not necessarily come at the expense of other foreign languages. I suspect that has to do with getting used to learning a language, and if that is true, than any sufficiently easy language could serve the same purpose. And something that could strengthen multilingualism in Europe in general (more language-savvy people = more people picking up additional European languages and to a higher proficiency).
I personally think it is more worthwhile to spend learning another EU language. The general benefit of better understanding how languages work will be the same, but you end up with a practical language skill. I am a bit tired of the argument anyways, having had to learn Latin with the exact same argument and it was a complete waste of time.
Hehe, I get that. However, if adopted properly, it would be a practical language skill, as it would be a language officially in use. Besides, if those studies described above are to be trusted (not sure if they are), it would facilitate additional language learning. But that argument is what you are getting at with your comment on Latin?
There are generalized benefits from learning a language that will make it easier to learn other languages. But which language doesn’t really matter, and learning a dead or artificial language might have some theoretical benefits in that regard, but in practical terms you will learn less of it as there is less material to practice on and in general the motivation to learn a language you can barely use will be low for most people.
Learning Esperanto first allegedly increases a student’s ability to learn other foreign languages
It should be noted that being multilingual at all improves the ability to acquire new unfamiliar words, this isn’t something unique to Esperanto (or at least, that project does not show that Esperanto is uniquely good for this purpose)
I’m curious, what language would you consider being easy to learn?
English has roots in celtic, germanic and romanic languages and thereby offers some familiarities to basically every western european language.
I can see that for native speakers of a slavic or finno-ugric language other languages of their families might be easier to learn though.
However, it’s not that you can dictate a language. Switching takes time. So maybe it would be smarter to pick a widespread slavic language and teach it alongside English from early on in schools. Takes as long as spreading a constructed language but doesn’t neee the additional effort of, you know, construction a language for 27+ countries and retains diversity and inclusion.
I’m curious, what language would you consider being easy to learn
A language with no grammatical irregularities for starters. And one where the phonetics are consistent. Constructed languages can offer this. Whether any existing ones are sufficiently easy, I’m not sure.
And then some mechanisms that facilitates vocabulary building. For instance, I like the affixes in Esperanto, as understanding the root word and then the affixes allows you to pick up all kinds of words you never explicitly learned. And example is -ejo, which indicates a place, could be combined with a root word such as the verb forĝas (to forge, root: forĝ-), yielding forĝejo = place where one forges. Or monero (money, root: moner-) + -ejo yields monerejo = place where one stores money (= monero).
I’m sure with modern linguistic knowledge a much easier language than Esperanto could be constructed.
However, it’s not that you can dictate a language
The question was whether an auxillary language would be a good idea. It would necessarily be dictated. Every citizen would learn it in school. The proposed benefit having a a common language easily learned and spoken equally well by all member state citizens, that could be used to cross language barriers (like English is today), and that could be used within EU (i.e. all institutions) as an official language.
For the record, I am intrigued by the idea, but I am very open to this being a bad idea, which is why I made the thread to hear people’s opinions.
Nah - let’s just use English and distort it to annoy UKers and USers(*) instead! :)
(*) those who notice
So make it german? Yeah i agree
No, respecting diversity is one of main EU values, this could only lead to discrimination.
Interesting point that I did not consider, and not sure I fully understand. How would it lead to discrimination do you think?
To make it easy, the new language would probably be based on a language with most speakers, be it native or learned, and it would further push smaller languages aside. Say, it’s based off a germanic language. Germans or Dutch would learn it in a bit, but Slavic people might struggle.
Languages are tied to people and is a very important part of culture which is why fabricated languages would never even make it, but even if one made it, someone would have advantage in learning it and it’s a powerful tool.
Languages are tied to people and is a very important part of culture which is why fabricated languages would never even make it, but even if one made it, someone would have advantage in learning it and it’s a powerful tool.
I kinda think this kind of usage is the only way a fabricated language would make it beyond a small niche language, but it would have to be actively implemented (which is really my question in the opening post: is that a good idea?). And it could be constructed in such a way that it becomes close to equally learnable for everyone that is intended to use it. I think Esperanto, while having some slavic influences as well, lies a bit too close to the romance languages that it might well lead to the situation you describe, but I am far from a linguistic expert and couldn’t say for certain.
No, I can’t see a single good reason to do that.
But we already have translators for this, so why add a 25th offical language?
Does translators not just lead to inefficient communication?
Only if they are bad translators.
How does this work? Is everything live translated?
It is currently working? You use a live translator when one is required.
Are there live translators between all pairs of languages?
I would assume so for places like the EU, UN or other big international conferences, yes.
That is what sounds so inefficient to me. It probably works fine at the bigger assemblies, but within smaller agencies located around Europe? I don’t know, but my guess is that they adopt a small subset of official languages as the working language (do you know?) which I think becomes a barrier to participation for citizens of member states who do not speak those languages natively.
Absolutely not
What is the main reason this is a poor idea to you?
It’s too difficult to implement.
Don’t fix it if it’s not broken.
We’re literally speaking English right now.
Let’s just go with plain english.
