4 ms·

> ... maybe as the UK is out of the EU the English language can become the lingua franca with less resistance as it is no ones language I mean, this is never g

by akie 6y ago

> ... maybe as the UK is out of the EU the English language can become the lingua franca with less resistance as it is no ones language I mean, this is never going to happen. Name one country in history that completely switched language without external pressure (invasion or colonisation).

mrtksn 6y ago
It's not about switching languages but making a language the default when people don't have the same native language. So instead of dealing 24 languages, EU can make English the default for everything international. Local stuff will continue with the local language but all the international dealings can be conducted in English. That's pretty much the standart on the internet and the younger generations are already used to it. If a website, an app or a game doesn't support your language you simply use English and it's all good. From the admin side it'a also good, many people who are not native English speakers who want to build projects for the global audience would simply start with English as a base language and localise from there. It works fine for the most international thing we have: The Internet. Should work fine for the EU too.
- Yaggo 6y ago
  EU will probably never give English any kind of official status of "linqua franca", because Germany/France/Spain/Italy etc. big countries with long cultural history just won't accept it. Smaller nations are much more flexible because they always have had to. That being said, English is already unofficial common language between most Europeans. E.g. it's very common for Finns and Swedes to communicate in English, despite Swedish being one the official(!) languages in Finland (also taught in elementary school), simply because many Finns have much stronger English than Swedish skills (and Swedes speak typically more neutral (clear) English than native speakers). Actually, because English is native language only in UK, that makes it excellent lingua franca for the rest: when both parties speak it as 2nd langauge, the communication is more easily kept in the same level (i.e. not speaking too fast, using exotic words, etc). That's just how the world works nowadays, e.g. in tech English vocabulary is extremely pervasive. Even in Finnish every-day talk in tech related areas we often use direct loan words from English ("Finglish"). Personally I think the only downside of English is its irregular prononcing, i.e. relatively weak correlation between written and spoken language.
barry-cotter 6y ago
> Name one country in history that completely switched language without external pressure (invasion or colonisation). IIRC Geneva switched from being bilingual French German to French completely dominating public life in the space of a generation because of the influx of French Protestants because of Calvin.

by akie 6y ago

mrtksn 6y ago

It's not about switching languages but making a language the default when people don't have the same native language. So instead of dealing 24 languages, EU can make English the default for everything international. Local stuff will continue with the local language but all the international dealings can be conducted in English. That's pretty much the standart on the internet and the younger generations are already used to it. If a website, an app or a game doesn't support your language you simply use English and it's all good. From the admin side it'a also good, many people who are not native English speakers who want to build projects for the global audience would simply start with English as a base language and localise from there. It works fine for the most international thing we have: The Internet. Should work fine for the EU too.

Yaggo 6y ago
EU will probably never give English any kind of official status of "linqua franca", because Germany/France/Spain/Italy etc. big countries with long cultural history just won't accept it. Smaller nations are much more flexible because they always have had to. That being said, English is already unofficial common language between most Europeans. E.g. it's very common for Finns and Swedes to communicate in English, despite Swedish being one the official(!) languages in Finland (also taught in elementary school), simply because many Finns have much stronger English than Swedish skills (and Swedes speak typically more neutral (clear) English than native speakers). Actually, because English is native language only in UK, that makes it excellent lingua franca for the rest: when both parties speak it as 2nd langauge, the communication is more easily kept in the same level (i.e. not speaking too fast, using exotic words, etc). That's just how the world works nowadays, e.g. in tech English vocabulary is extremely pervasive. Even in Finnish every-day talk in tech related areas we often use direct loan words from English ("Finglish"). Personally I think the only downside of English is its irregular prononcing, i.e. relatively weak correlation between written and spoken language.

barry-cotter 6y ago

> Name one country in history that completely switched language without external pressure (invasion or colonisation). IIRC Geneva switched from being bilingual French German to French completely dominating public life in the space of a generation because of the influx of French Protestants because of Calvin.