<div dir="ltr"><h1 id="gmail-headline" class="gmail-headline" style="visibility: visible;">As the E.U.’s Language Roster Swells, So Does the Burden</h1>
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<p class="gmail-byline">By <span>
<a class="gmail-byline-author-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/by/james-kanter" title="More Articles by JAMES KANTER"> <span class="gmail-byline-author">JAMES KANTER</span>
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<time class="gmail-dateline" datetime="2017-01-05T00:32:18-05:00">JAN. 4, 2017</time>
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">It’s not easy to speak with one voice in 24 languages.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">When what is now the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/european_union/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the European Union." class="gmail-meta-org">European Union</a>
first took root in the 1950s, it included just six nations, and in
three of them many people spoke French. It could sidestep national
jealousies without trouble by designating most of the member nations’
main languages as official languages.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">But
that set a precedent, and as the union has grown much larger, so has
the official language roster — not to mention the bill for translation
and interpretation, which now runs to about 1 billion euros, or more
than $1 billion, a year.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Defenders
of the policy say it preserves diversity and promotes language
learning. They contend that it is not to blame for the bloc’s repeated
failure to speak as one over issues like migration, the economy and
Russia.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Still,
the polyglottery can be a bit of a strain, especially when it comes to
tongues like Irish, which only a few Irish citizens use frequently
outside the education system. Though Irish has been an official language
of the union for a decade, member nations keep postponing the deadline
for providing full Irish translation and interpretation services.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Liadh Ni Riada, an Irish member of the European Parliament, went on what she called a two-week <a href="http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/33425">language strike</a> in 2015, speaking only Irish at work, to demonstrate her annoyance at the delays. She has threatened to do it again.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content" id="gmail-story-continues-1">There
is also a push to recognize Luxembourgish, the only national language
of a member state that the union has not made official. Yet
Luxembourgers also use German and French, and even their laws are all
written in French. So the authorities are looking for a way to enhance
the language’s status that would not entail a lot of translation and
interpretation expense.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">The European Union may add Turkish as its 25th official language, even if Turkey never becomes a member. The reason is Cyprus.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">The
island has been divided for decades between the mainly Greek-speaking
Republic of Cyprus and a breakaway Turkish-speaking region in the north.
The two sides have been in painstaking talks to reunite the island, and
the republic, which belongs to the European Union, has requested
official status for Turkish as a gesture to the north.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">There
is no assurance that the unity talks will succeed, so no vote has been
held yet by member governments on the language request.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">As
you might expect, some official languages are more official than
others. To save time and money, officials and staff members at the
European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, usually write internally
in only three — English, French and German — and often speak in English,
to the annoyance of the French.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Now that <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/unitedkingdom/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about United Kingdom." class="gmail-meta-loc">Britain</a> has voted to leave the union, <a href="https://twitter.com/JLMelenchon/status/746300956577505280">some French politicians</a> want <a href="https://twitter.com/RobertMenardFR/status/746265987410989056">to demote English</a>, and a prominent Polish lawmaker, Danuta Hubner, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-language-idUSKCN0ZD2AC">warned</a> that “if we don’t have the U.K., we don’t have English.”</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">But
when lawyers looked into it, they concluded that it would take a
unanimous vote, and there is almost no chance of that. Ireland and Malta
rely on English, and it is extremely popular in Central and Eastern
Europe. Somebody would be sure to veto the move.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"><br></p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">NYTimes, 1/5/2017<br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="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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