Why should English remain the official language of Europe?
7th April 2021
Last week I came across various articles stating that the French are calling to replace English with either French or Latin as Europe’s official language. Does this come as a surprise after Brexit? Probably not, but choosing Latin as the official language of Europe seems a little far-fetched!
The ‘anti-English’ movement started with the campaign for “European linguistic diversity” led by Clement Beaune, the French Minister for European Affairs.
Clement Beaune emphasized the lack of need for English after Brexit and how Europeans should “get used to speaking their languages again,”.
Up until the 1990s, the leading language of the EU was indeed French. When the EU was the EC (European Community), Dutch, French, German and Italian were identified as the working languages. However, as time went on and more countries joined, many of which had English as their second or widely used language, the number of English speakers grew until English became the common language.
Currently, the EU lists 24 official and working languages. The United Kingdom (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) was the only member country that gave English as its official language. Naturally, there are some member countries that commonly use English but have nominated a different language as their EU official language. For instance, the Republic of Ireland uses Irish Gaelic as its official language, and Malta uses Maltese.
Some critics have joined Clement Beaune’s discussion to say that the EU shouldn’t have a dominant language, but rather trust in multilingualism by making all 24 languages equally official.
This would allow any EU citizen to write to the EU Commission, Parliament or Council in any of the 24 languages, and expect a reply. How that would work in practise, we aren’t totally sure but it would provide a lot of people with long term employment.
But Latin!?!
The Latin language originates from Ancient Rome, and in our considered opinion that is where it should stay. In the Le Figaro article (with the largest newspaper readership in France), the writer Sundar Ramanadane argues that Latin should be the natural choice, based on its historical political experience and history. He says that using Latin would bring European unity.
The reason why Latin is a rather strange language to resurrect is that the language went commercially extinct in the first instance because of how difficult and complex it is. Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders, six or seven noun cases, five declensions, four verb conjugations, six tenses, three persons, three moods, two voices, two or three aspects, and two numbers. That means nearly every spoken word can be modified based on context, voice, mood, person, number, gender, tense, and delivery.
Why English is here to stay?
360 million people speak English as their first language. Europe is home to roughly 212 million English speakers and used as the lingua franca between people who don’t necessarily speak it as a first language. After the United Kingdom, Germany has the most English speakers with 45.8 million. This is followed by France (25.4 million) and Italy (20.7 million).
Interestingly, in Brussels, English has become the official and unofficial bureaucratic language of choice. According to EU commission records, nearly 90 percent of legislation is conducted in English.
English is used as the official first language in 59 countries worldwide: including, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, the Cook Islands, Dominica, Eswatini, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Namibia, Nauru, Nigeria, Niue, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Furthermore, the number of speakers for whom English is the unofficial second language is greater than all other English first language speakers and continues to grow.
Summary
If the French/EU wants to trade or continue to do business with the rest of the world/English speaking countries, they need to be able to communicate in that language – English. Foreign Tongues stand with the Swedish MEP who suggested that communications in the EU are fairer in English, as it is everyone’s second language.
Looking at the number of English speakers around the world, and how widely the English language is used in business, entertainment and science and the equality it drives in the EU, leaving it as the Europeans’ official language would be the most rational choice to keep living.
References:
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/french-call-to-replace-english-with-latin-as-europe-s-official-language-44961
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/27/brexit-end-english-official-eu-language-uk-brussels
https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-many-people-speak-english-and-where-is-it-spoken
