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Britain may be leaving the EU, but English is going nowhere
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July 4, 2016 4.48am EDT
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<h3 class="">Author</h3>
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<a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/andrew-linn-125373" rel="author">
<img alt="" itemprop="image" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/avatars/125373/width170/RackMultipart20140509-30584-1idq2x3.jpg">
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Andrew Linn
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Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Westminster
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<br><p class=""><a class="" href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-westminster"><img alt="University of Westminster" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/institutions/university-of-westminster/logos/width170_logo-1373041457.jpg"></a></p>
<p class=""><a href="http://theconversation.com/us/partners">University of Westminster</a> provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.</p>
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Lingua franca.
<span class=""><span class="">Socolov Alexandru/<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com">www.shutterstock.com</a></span></span>
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<p>After Brexit, there are various things that some in the EU hope to see and hear less in the future. One is <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-european-parliament-speech-heckled-brexit-eu-referendum-a7107131.html">Nigel Farage</a>. Another is the English language.</p>
<p>In the early hours of June 24, as the referendum outcome was becoming
clear, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, left-wing MEP and French presidential
candidate, <a href="https://twitter.com/JLMelenchon/status/746300956577505280">tweeted</a> that “English cannot be the third working language of the European parliament”.</p>
<p>This is not the first time that French and German opinion has weighed
in against alleged disproportionate use of English in EU business. In
2012, for example, a <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/section/languages-culture/news/commission-denies-english-language-favouritism/">similar point</a>
was made about key eurozone recommendations from the European
Commission being published initially “in a language which [as far as the
Euro goes] is only spoken by less than 5m Irish”. With the number of
native speakers of English in the EU set to drop <a href="http://languageknowledge.eu/">from 14% to around 1%</a> of the bloc’s total with the departure of the UK, this point just got a bit sharper.</p>
<h2>Translation overload</h2>
<p>Official EU language policy is multilingualism with equal rights for all languages used in member states. <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/displayFtu.html?ftuId=FTU_5.13.6.html">It recommends</a>
that “every European citizen should master two other languages in
addition to their mother tongue” – Britain’s abject failure to achieve
this should make it skulk away in shame.</p>
<p>The EU recognises 24 “official and working” languages, a number that
has mushroomed from the original four (Dutch, French, German and
Italian) as more countries have joined. All EU citizens have a right to
access EU documents in any of those languages. This calls for a
translation team numbering around 2,500, not to mention a further 600
full-time interpreters. In practice most day-to-day business is
transacted in either English, French or German and then translated, but
it is true that English dominates to a considerable extent.</p>
<img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/129009/width754/image-20160701-18300-1gsn96u.jpg">
<span class="">Lots of work still to do.</span>
<span class=""><span class="">Etienne Ansotte/EPA</span></span>
<p>The preponderance of English has nothing to do with the influence of
Britain or even Britain’s membership of the EU. Historically, the
expansion of the British empire, the impact of the industrial revolution
and the emergence of the US as a world power have embedded English in
the language repertoire of speakers across the globe.</p>
<p>Unlike Latin, which outlived the Roman empire as the lingua franca of
medieval and renaissance Europe, English of course has native speakers
(who may be unfairly advantaged), but it is those who have learned
English as a foreign language – “<a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=125584&fileId=S0266078401004023">Euro-English</a>” or “<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-971X.2009.01582.x/abstract;jsessionid=16AE55089FD1D1F37390E68675283539.f02t04">English as a lingua franca</a>” – who now constitute the majority of users.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf">2012 Special Eurobarometer on Europeans and their Languages</a>,
English is the most widely spoken foreign language in 19 of the member
states where it is not an official language. Across Europe, 38% of
people speak English well enough as a foreign language to have a
conversation, compared to 12% speaking French and 11% in German.</p>
<p>The report also found that 67% of Europeans consider English the most
useful foreign language, and that the numbers favouring German (17%) or
French (16%) have declined. As a result, 79% of Europeans want their
children to learn English, compared to 20% for French and German.</p>
<h2>Too much invested in English</h2>
<p>Huge sums have been invested in English teaching by both national
governments and private enterprise. As the demand for learning English
has increased, so has the supply. English language learning worldwide <a href="http://www.ednetinsight.com/news-alerts/voice-from-the-industry/the-global-english-language-learning--ell--market.html">was estimated</a>
to be worth US$63.3 billion (£47.5 billion) in 2012, and it is expected
that this market will rise to US$193.2 billion (£145.6 billion) by
2017. The value of English for speakers of other languages is not going
to diminish any time soon. There is simply too much invested in it.</p>
<p>Speakers of English as a second language outnumber first-language English <a href="https://www.ethnologue.com/language/eng">speakers by 2:1</a>
both in Europe and globally. For many Europeans, and especially those
employed in the EU, English is a useful piece in a toolbox of languages
to be pressed into service when needed – a point which was evident in a <a href="http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/433577">recent project</a>
on whether the use of English in Europe was an opportunity or a threat.
So in the majority of cases using English has precisely nothing to do
with the UK or Britishness. The EU needs practical solutions and English
provides one.</p>
<p>English is unchallenged as the lingua franca of Europe. It has even
been suggested that in some countries of northern Europe it has become a
second rather than a foreign language. Jan Paternotte, D66 party leader
in Amsterdam, <a href="http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2008/08/make_english_second_official_l/">has proposed</a> that English should be decreed the official second language of that city.</p>
<p>English has not always held its current privileged status. French and
German have both functioned as common languages for high-profile fields
such as philosophy, science and technology, politics and diplomacy, not
to mention Church Slavonic, Russian, Portuguese and other languages in
different times and places.</p>
<p>We can assume that English will not maintain its privileged position
forever. Who benefits now, however, are not the predominantly
monolingual British, but European anglocrats whose multilingualism
provides them with a key to international education and employment.</p>
<p>Much about the EU may be about to change, but right now an
anti-English language policy so dramatically out of step with practice
would simply make the post-Brexit hangover more painful.</p>
<a href="http://theconversation.com/britain-may-be-leaving-the-eu-but-english-is-going-nowhere-61769">http://theconversation.com/britain-may-be-leaving-the-eu-but-english-is-going-nowhere-61769</a><br></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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