Common European Language,or just a second official one?
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Common European Language,or just a second official one?
Thu, 26/02/2009 - 23:30
I have seen in many blogs, some people pushing for "esperanto" language, to be the future language of EU and Europe, even to replace the current nationals...
Well in my opinion, if any language will dominate Europe in the future,it will do it gradualy, naturaly and because people will chose it for the lingua franca...And this language already exists...It is english...I do not see why we need to start teaching a manufactured language to our children from scrap..Even if we do, we must start doing it now, as soon as possible,so it can establish itself with the future generations.
And personally i am 100% against the replacement of our national languages with a manufactured one.My native language is greek,a language that survived for millenia,and i do not see why we should abandon it now...
I am all for though, a second official language in europe.either that is english (that it would make sence,since most of us communicate in english)or other existing european language,french or german most likely...
A second official language that will exist in all member states and will allow even more free movement in people and goods and services...I would love for example to move to Finland,but since i do not speak finnish, i can not,since there is no company there that would employ me without finnish....If there was a second official language,people could move to Czech Republic,Slovenia,Greece,Hungary,Poland,Romania without having to learn the national language in the beggining,but they would be oblidged to do so after they moved and decided to stay for good...They could find employment in all aveliable jobs apart state and goverment jobs, army,police and high ranked executives....Once they learned the native language,they could be employed everywhere...
In that case not only we allow people to move freely in the union without the restriction of a language, but also countries with languages that are spoken widely in the world , notably english and french, due to past colonial history, they won't have to bare with the bulk of immigration into europe,thus causing problems and anti-immigrant feelings. When the language borders will break,then the borders of europe will trully collapse...
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It is late, I answer tomorow
SC
-All languages are natural,
-All languages are artificial.
There is not language fabricated in sheeting and bolts, plaster or plastic. All languages are composed of the sounds which the human organs can produce.
There are not languages which would grow in nature, nor which would come spontaneously in the mouth of the new - born.
All languages are create by mind and human intelligence, and have to be learnt.
I hope that nobody thinks of replacing the linguistic diversity of Europe with an unique language, that it is English, Greek or French, it would be a disaster for Culture European as for those of all countries.
And if a national language, for instance French, had to act as only channel of communication, would you plan to make every schoolchild of Europe learn a language asking for ten-twelve years of effort to be understood?
Ten-twelve years of effort, safe for the Frenchmen who, during this time would study the scientific, literary, juridical subjects of their choice!
Who would be surprised to see then the Frenchmen (in our example) becoming the most expert, most cultivated, the most learned people in justice ?
We shall have people of lords, leaders, supermen, reigning over people of slaves, servants whose culture will be to throw to garbage!
Ein Europa, ein Volk, eine Sprache! Do you want of this Europe there?
And it would be the same thing if the chosen language was that of the Englishmen, of Greeks, of Spanish, of Germans...
Europe will be multilingual or be not.
And there is a better ‘ski jump’ in learning languages than study of a logical and simple, constructed language, as Esperanto. A language which already allows an easy communication afterwards, at the farthest, two years of studies, leaving then the time and energy to approach any other national languages.
Some people will say to you that Esperanto has neither culture nor soul.
That's true: the train, the telephone, the television have neither soul nor culture either, however this works!
And who has already seen what resembles soul?
A language does not need to have soul nor to have a culture, it needs to be able to transport all cultures, all feelings of those that believe in souls as of those who do not believe in it.
Finally, if natural languages are so charged of soul, charms or feelings, why to accept that they are eliminated and replaced with an unique language, that it is the French, English or Greek?
SC
well thank you soal cathroir for your comments, but if you read carefuly my post, I DO NOT SUPPORT the replacement of any european language, that is why i am against esperanto and the idea of ONE common language, rather have a second official one that will allow people to move even more freely within the union...and your argument about learning french while the french can study something else thus giving them an advantage... well is a bit bizare...!! don't we all learn languages at school...?? while studying maths and physics...?? we are going to continue learning another language at school while we study other subjects too....as for the french, they will have to learn other language/s so they too will have to spend sometime studying it....so nobody complains...... multilingualism in todays Europe is more than helpful...in fact it is a necessity.....