SV: Vital Statistics

[Bharat Gupt]

Lars Martin Fosse wrote:
> All EU legal
> documents are routinely published in English and French. They are then
> translated into the various EU languages,
>
> But if English
> has been chosen for linking, I would like to know how the French (and Germans)
> reacted to that. I would be grateful for some source material here!

I must clarify that my comment on English in EU was not restricted to the deliberations
of the EU legislature and executive but to the whole socio-cultural entity of EU.
The popularity of English as link at cultural level in EU has gone up by leaps and
bounds in a decade. EU is a bigger market for American films now, more English medium
courses are being offered in universities (to lure Indian students the French advertise
that Indians can take degrees from France studying in English), there is a great rush
for learning English among the young Greeks (dozens of teaching shops ,"frontisterio",
have come up in Athens in a decade), the Onassis Prize for literature requires that
entries be submitted in English or Greek translations only, many American Universities
have opened distant campuses in Europe, the fresh entrants to diplomatic services prefer
to polish their English and translation of a good book into English is any publisher's
desired investment.

Let us face it, the EU officially may translate documents into several languages, but
the people shall always prefer one link language. As linguistic nationalism subsides, in
Europe and India alike, the link languages, English and Hindi respectively, shall come
to occupy bigger spaces.

Bharat Gupt

[admin note: changed date from Fri, 4 Jan 1980 00:03:05 +0000]