24 ms·
French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoGreat, well then I suggest that we just repeat this process whenever a new presidency takes over. Wonder when it's Denmark's turn again - we really missed the opportunity in 2012 by being so darn agreeable all the time.
- galgot 5y agoAre there other countries than Denmark speaking danish in the EU , or elsewhere ?
- Tehnix 5y agoI take it that GPs point is that it makes just as little sense, to change the working language to danish, purely based on presidency.
- tgv 5y agoThere's no other country in the EU that speaks French, either. And by numbers, German should prevail.
- meesles 5y agoYour first point is incorrect: Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Monaco [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/european_languages/languages/french.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/european_languages/languages/...
- akmarinov 5y agoSwitzerland and Monaco aren’t in the EU
- tgv 5y agoHow could I forget Belgium. Damn!
- madia_leva 5y agoParts of Belgium. Just ~35% of Belgiums are French speakers. Most speak Dutch. Same for Switzerland, most Swiss speak German.
- TX0098812 5y agoFlemish I think. Although it's pretty similar to Dutch.
- Avalaxy 5y agoFlemish is not a language, it's a dialect. The language is Dutch.
- TX0098812 5y agoThat's an opinion, not a fact, and one that depends on who you ask and where. If you go to the Flanders region people will certainly tell you they speak Flemish. Language researchers can argue all they want about how languages should be grouped, but they sound different, they use different words, and people call them different things. It is simply incorrect to state that people in Belgium speak Dutch. Might as well just expand the group to include German and English (etc) and say they speak Germanic. Fun fact, the Dutch call their language Nederlands and refer to German as Duits ("Dutch").
- Nyubis 5y agoThe language is Dutch, the collection of dialects spoken in the Flanders region is Flemish. If you're feeling charitable, you can refer to it as a language variant. Here is the constitution of Belgium: https://www.senate.be/doc/const_nl.html https://www.senate.be/doc/const_nl.html Articles 2 and 3 define the Flemish (Vlaamse) community and region. Article 4 defines the language areas and specifically mentions Dutch (Nederlands), not Flemish. See also: the Dutch Language Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Language_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Language_Union) being founded on a treaty between the Netherlands and Belgium. For a language that's derived from Dutch but now its own proper language, try Afrikaans.
- tinomaxgalvin 5y agoDon't tell the Belgians.
- akmarinov 5y agoThere’s Belgium and Luxembourg, but sure…
- mannerheim 5y agoIt's a recognised minority language in Germany, specifically in Schleswig-Holstein.
- quattrofan 5y agoI love France, the food the wine, even the cars. But why is it that they manage to be such wankers sometimes about their language?
- Apocryphon 5y agoAh, a return to the diplomatic norms of the 178th century. Literally a lingua franca, after all.
- idiotsecant 5y agoTime traveler detected.
- tsimionescu 5y agoNot literally, no. The literal Lingua Franca spoken across the eastern meditarranean was named for the "Franks", which simply meant "Western Europeans" to the people speaking in lingua franca; but was mostly based on Italian, with slavic and Greek influences. So the French, the Prussians, the Venetians, probably even the Polish were "Franks" in the sense used in Lingua Francia. In turn, the use of the term Frank to refer to western europeans was in relation to the Frankish Empire, a confederation of germanic tribes. France is one descendant of the Frankish Empire, Germany being another. The Franks themselves spoke a germanic language.
- sys_64738 5y agoOnly Ireland has English as their primary language of the EU so it makes sense.
- docdeek 5y agoMalta has English as an official language, too.
- Tehnix 5y agoYet by far the biggest shared language in the EU is english, no contest.
- tinomaxgalvin 5y agoIt makes no sense at all.
- gumby 5y agoEnglish is the dominant language of Ireland, Malta (and Scotland and Wales) but as each has a "national" language and English had already been selected by the UK, Ireland nominated Irish and Malta Maltese as an official EU language. So at the moment there is no country that has claimed English as its official language for EU purposes, thus it's legally OK to ignore anything official from or within the EU that is in English. Malta has the population of Oakland, but most of the people there apparently speak Maltese. Ireland has about half the population of the Bay Area but only about 40% of them claim to have some facility in Irish. In both countries it appears English is universally understood and spoken. (all this info from Wikipedia FWIW). I think it would be smart for the EU to nominate an English (of some sort) as the supranational language as it would elevate no member state over another. This same approach has worked pretty well for India, where the use of that language has a far more fraught history. But Malta or Ireland could simply take one for the team and switch their nominated language.
- yardie 5y agoAfter getting the middle finger from the UK they are slowly then quickly excising the English out of their lives.
- adventured 5y agoFrance is sitting on an economy that hasn't net expanded in inflation-adjusted terms since approximately 1980. Forty years of stagnation, you'd think a nation would consider what it's doing wrong. Their position and importance in the world has collapsed over the past half century - and that's only going to get worse yet. It's pretty clear how that middle finger exercise is going to turn out for France. The British at least, for their part, are riding the global language (which gives them all manner of advantages, not least of which is cultural export which helps to maintain relevance). (and no, Mandarin does not have a future in that language role, China's population will rapidly decline and Mandarin is extremely difficult to learn, while simultaneously the global population that speaks English will continue to expand; in 50 years more people will be speaking English and fewer people will be speaking Mandarin)
- kmlx 5y ago> the global population that speaks English will continue to expand; in 50 years more people will be speaking English and fewer people will be speaking Mandarin interesting. any sources where i could find out more?
- raverbashing 5y agoYeah, good luck with that. Easier said than done. Brexit makes the case for English even stronger as it is more of a neutral common ground than before (since Ireland and Malta have it as official languages - though not the "first" official language of Ireland, in theory, of course)
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoI'm currently reading a book about the Congress of Vienna and it's amazing that the Russian Tsar argued with the English ambassador in French. Here were all the rich and powerful men of Europe dividing up the continent and there wasn't a single translator needed.
- kleton 5y agoThat would have been Aleksandr I's first language even.
- j7ake 5y agoThe aristocrats in Russia back then probably spoke French as well as or better than Russian if Tolstoy books are to be believed.
- dgaaaaaaaaaa 5y ago^ This is right. It happened because of Peter the Great's westward alignment of the royal machinery and continued till the last Tsar.
- d0mine 5y agoRussian tsars are likely not even native Russian speakers. I listened to a recording recently -- the accent is obvious. Same family https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/king-george-tsar-nicholas-1913/ https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/king-george-tsar-nicholas-1...
- amilios 5y agoInteresting -- what kind of accent is it? Would it be most similar to the accent a German native speaker would have speaking Russian today?
- tjalfi 5y agoThat sounds like an interesting read, what's the title of the book?
- madia_leva 5y agoSometimes countries insist of fighting wars that have been over for a long time. This is one example. American attitude towards China rise is another example. Now more seriously, I think what the French are trying to do is just to avoid a complete switch to English in the EU institutions. Since the start of the pandemic, most meetings which used to be multilingual (with interpretation) are now English only and nobody seems to have a big problem with that. If anything, it makes interactions more natural (talking through interpreters is a pain in the ass). French are probably worried that this could be here to stay and are just trying to go back to the status quo.
- tinomaxgalvin 5y agoWhy are they worried? English isn't English anymore. In fact it makes sense to chose a language that isn't the native language of any EU nation. (I'm squinting regarding Ireland).
- disgruntledphd2 5y agoUnfortunately (or fortunately), English is practically the native tongue of Ireland now (and has been since the 18th century, to be honest).
- madia_leva 5y agoWell, it's history and education. In every country children are told quite silly things about the world and, in particular, about the importance of their country in the world. This is even worse for current or former empires (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Russia, US, China...). Children there are told they are special and superior in some way to other children who were born in other places. It's not surpising that they end up asuming those lies as something obvious and natural. The most striking example nowdays is of course the United States, just because they are the biggest superpower (China's children are not less indoctrinated, though). Most American adults believe that their country is the biggest democracy the world has ever seen (cough, cough, India), their lifestyle the highest (Scandinavia smiles amusingly with a barely hidden condescending gesture) or that their wars are fought just to defend freedom (and Irak invaded because of the mass destruction weapons, apparently). In the case of France they take as reference the Napoleonic times where their country was dominant and their language the vehicule of culture and politics in Europe. They also think the French Revolution invented real democracy or something similar (even though American Revolution started more than ten years earlier and Greeks had true democracies a couple thousand years before that). Of course, those days are long gone, but this is what French are tought since they are small children, so most of them end up believing it. Nationalism is a serious disease and most countries are infected.
- tgv 5y ago> the taste and pride of multilingualism For everybody but the French, that is. > that ersatz of the English language, which narrows the scope of one’s thoughts, and restricts one’s ability to express him or herself And the ability to formulate a new policy with a subtle twist in your favor that no-one gets until it's too late. Embarrassing.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago> that ersatz of the English language, which narrows the scope of one’s thoughts, and restricts one’s ability to express him or herself This sounds awfully close to Sapir–Whorf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
- jobigoud 5y agoThe quote is missing a bit of context, it's specifically referring to "Globish", or International English, not English per-se, but rather the variant of "simplified" English that only use intermediate-level vocabulary and grammar because that's the common ground between most non-native speakers.
- Kelamir 5y ago> that ersatz of the English language, which narrows the scope of one’s thoughts, and restricts one’s ability to express him or herself They should use Ithkuil instead then :D
- Tsiklon 5y agoI’d have thought they would have kept English as it’s effectively a neutral language at that point - it would be convenient to avoid accusations of German or French dominance should either push for their’s in English’s place
- Apocryphon 5y agoShame there's no real-world interest in the powers that be to officialize Esperanto.
- mannerheim 5y agoWhat would be the point? Might as well make Klingon an official language.
- tdeck 5y agoEsperanto is considerably easier to learn than Klingon.
- ben_w 5y agoOne is designed to be easy to learn, to be regular and logical and use roots familiar to European ears, the other is designed to sound alien. (Does Klingon have a word for bridge-of-a-ship and not bridge-over-water, or is that just an urban legend?)
- bawolff 5y agohttps://www.kli.org/about-klingon/new-klingon-words/date/# https://www.kli.org/about-klingon/new-klingon-words/date/# says that QI is klingon for bridge over water.
- ben_w 5y agoQI? Curiously, that’s the name of the TV show where I think I heard the claim. I wonder if it was added and given that form as a direct result of that appearance on that show? (The timing is plausible, but I don’t have a detailed enough memory to find which episode).
- throw737858 5y agoWhy not arabic? French is kind of obsolete.
- gumby 5y agoMandarin would open the EU to the largest number of speakers. Spanish would be a good second, if English is politically untenable, but of course it's already an official EU language so choosing it might annoy the other states. Romansh is an European language not used in the EU; choosing it would level the playing field (and would not be so politically complex as another such like Basque).
- adventured 5y ago> Mandarin would open the EU to the largest number of speakers More people speak English than Mandarin and that language base represents a dramatically larger economy than Mandarin does. The long-term trends favor English over Mandarin, not least of which is due to the difficulty of learning Mandarin vs English. The demographics underpinning Mandarin use are exceptionally bad in terms of direction, whereas the demographics underpinning English use globally are exceptionally good. The past 20 years has more than demonstrated the very low interest globally in Mandarin, despite the huge increase in China's importance and economy there has been no corresponding boom in the pick-up of Mandarin outside of China. In the next 20 years Mandarin will become a contracting language, while English will continue to expand globally. Over the time that China has been rapidly rising (since ~1990), English has only become more important globally, not less. Eventually, across this century, nearly as many people in China will speak English as Mandarin (they're very hard at work on achieving that; it'll be to their benefit and they full well know it).
- gumby 5y ago> More people speak English than Mandarin and that language base represents a dramatically larger economy than Mandarin does. Oh I agree but I was jocularly speculating on multiple constraints, to whit English is unacceptable as it would imply something favourable about those damned splittists; Spanish would not be acceptable because it would elevate one European country's language above others (though wasn't that the de facto story about English before Brexit?) etc etc. In a different comment I argued for English because is not the selected language of any EU country. Hmm, German might be a good choice as it is the EU language of three nations, so has a "majority vote" :-)
- heinrichhartman 5y agoThe sane thing to do after the Brexit, was to embrace English as main language, since it has not become neutral ground! According to Wikipedia we have: * Germany: 56% English speakers, 14.5% French speakers * Italy: 34% English vs. 19.43% French * Spain: 22% English vs. 11.73% French * Sweden: 89% English vs. 8% French I can't get over how bad this decision is. How can you ignore these kinds of discrepancies? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_distribution_of_French_speakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_distribution_of_F...
- akmarinov 5y agoHaving it as a work language just means that they’ll pout if whatever document they’re sent isn’t in French for the 6 months they are in charge - nothing more. No big deal.
- kelnos 5y agoNot really, the article says: > “We will always ask the Commission to send us in French the letters it wishes to address to the French authorities, and if they fail to do so, we will wait for the French version before sending it,” the diplomat said. "Send us French or consider your request to be second-class and ignored until you send us French".
- akmarinov 5y agoBefore that it says: > The unnamed diplomat said all high-level meetings of the Council – the body which helps sets the political agenda in Brussels – will be conducted in French instead of English during the six-month presidency. It’s only during the Council, outside of the Council every country expects documents in their language.
- estaseuropano 5y agoThose meetings anyway have interpreters.
- akmarinov 5y ago> when it takes over the Council of the European Union presidency in 2022 So it’s only for 6 months, then back to English.
- justaguy88 5y agoWhat does Ireland think of this?
- nextlevelwizard 5y agoI can see the logic, since UK isn't part of the EU anymore, but considering over all amount of people who can speak and understand English vs France EU wide this is pretty silly show of power. After all even if EU matters were done purely in french it wouldn't be "the killer feature" to make french be taught much more in schools since english is the universal business language. And even if EU states decided that they needed to start teaching another language besides english to their kids to prepare them for future employment I would actually go for chinese instead of french. Because that will be the next actual global language by the end of this century unless humanity nukes it self out of existence.
- dzonga 5y agoas a non-chinese person, in Taiwan currently I would say otherwise. with Chinese learning english to remain competitive. And currently english schools demand a premium. And likewise foreign english teachers are paid more than locals. Taiwan for example wants to become bilingual by 2030. though, personally, I don't see that happening. Majority of business communication worldwide is already in english so are technical docs. well, unless it's electronic stuff which is in chinese | german. Culturally america's most known exports are in english. So yeah, what France is pushing is largely stupid, though i'm an ardent listener of French hip hop.
- kergonath 5y ago> After all even if EU matters were done purely in french That is not going to happen. Nothing is done purely in one language in the EU. The language rules are deeply embedded in the treaties; changing this would require quite a lot of countries to agree formally. The three work languages of the Commission are English, French, and German, and that’s not going to change. What can change is which one of these is used the most.
- Cu3PO42 5y agoIreland, however, is still a part of the EU.
- 3836293648 5y agoThe UK left, sure. But Ireland still exists
- moomin 5y agoThis is a non-story. There are three working languages of the EU: English, French and German. Everyone in Brussels will roll their eyes, use French for six months and then revert to English because it’s the one most people speak. Would they have done this if Brexit hadn’t happened? Yes, they would. France has a chip on its shoulder about French being replaced as the world’s lingua franca, but stunts like this aren’t going to bring it back. Not even in Brussels.
- wrnr 5y agoYes this is political trolling, and should France get it way Hungary will counter troll and insist we adopt their language for 6 months next time around.
- bonzini 5y agoHungarian is not a working language.
- yorwba 5y ago> Not even in Brussels. Most people in Brussels already speak French... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francization_of_Brussels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francization_of_Brussels
- dariusj18 5y agoBrussels being an phrase often used to mean EU governmental officials and diplomats.
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoMost of them live in Brussels and speak at least casual French.
- smcl 5y agoI am quite sure they do. But the point was that those EU institutions will revert to using English as their main working language as they have been before the French turn at presidency of the EU begins.
- th3h4mm3r 5y agoLa grandeur.
- laszlokorte 5y agoUltimately it will be JavaScript anyway :)
- BozeWolf 5y agoWe will invent something to transpile english to french.
- bsd44 5y agoThis is too funny to take seriously.
- redler 5y ago> "...Globish – that ersatz of the English language, which narrows the scope of one’s thoughts..." So the EU's argument in Le Figaro is basically the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
- szundi 5y agoFun fact, english in England and in the US is spoken badly. The real majority decides, that is… India!
- jokethrowaway 5y agoWhy not Latin?
- twic 5y agoThe Greeks wouldn't like that.
- coldcode 5y agoI say if you want a universal language everyone should learn Latin. Now you won't offend anyone. Except the French.
- cheph 5y agoPretty offensive to me.
- kelnos 5y agoJoking aside, it's a shame Esperanto didn't catch on. One of its features is that it's fairly easy to learn, unlike something like Latin.
- leke 5y agoWell it's a growing movement, so it's still catching on. Who knows, it could become popular enough one day.
- mannerheim 5y agoGrowing for a century and a half, still spoken by fewer people than minor dialects of minor languages.
- leke 5y agoTime is not really a good measurement in this case. It was doing quite well until it was unfortunately nearly killed off by WW2. It's recent rise in popularity has been due to the tools people have been given to create and host various forms of media and learning platforms on the internet. If you poll, you will find today that most people will not be aware of the concept of an international auxiliary language. This gives the adoption of one (not necessarily Esperanto) some kind of hope.
- pyuser583 5y agoLatin is pretty easy to learn. That’s one reason it was a second language for so long. Latin even has a large amount of texts written at a basic level. Works like Summa Theologica and the Vulgate Bible were written in extremely simple language. It has a very small vocabulary. There are some weird edge cases (imperative plural, for example), but even they follow common rules.
- tibbydudeza 5y agoI guess that is one of the few good things to be colonized by the Brits as a colony - they gave us fish & chips , tea , soccer , cricket and their language.
- favorited 5y agoWait until you learn where they got the tea...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- surfsvammel 5y agoI used to be against the French protectionism of its language, or the fact that research papers in China was written in Chinese. 'Why not just all speak English?', I thought back then. But then I learned French. More importantly I learned that when you speak another language, at a certain level (close to fluent), you realise that language is not only about communication. Language is also about thinking. You realise that thinking in another language actually is totally different. It gives you different perspectives, different ways to understand things and, I would argue, different thoughts altogether. From that point on, I am now of the opinion that we need to protect, and use, more languages, not fewer. Not because of their cultural and historical value but because of their possibility to open up for completely seperate ways of thinking.
- Hamuko 5y agoEnglish is already a second language to most of the people in the European Union.
- holyknight 5y agoAlmost no-one has english as first language in EU. Also most younger people speak at least 2 languages. Only older folks and people that lives in rural areas speak only one language.
- surfsvammel 5y agoI know. I am European. I've been bilingual my entire life. Today I speak four languages. The point was not that speaking two languages is enough, what I meant is that I believe having more languages around in general increases the diversity also of our ideas and thoughts. That is why I, today, feel like protecting languages have a very valid point.
- atc 5y agoUtter stupidity and nonsense gesturing from an increasingly fractured “union”.
- gdsdfe 5y agoSomehow this made wonder if Esperanto or at least the idea behind it that we can come up with one common language to use worldwide. If that was actually successful we might have less of this nonsense but then again good luck having everyone agreeing on something ... Hmm oh well
- leke 5y agoA single, permanent auxiliary language will never be implemented as long as people can make a repeated choice. Like with this storey, official languages will flip-flop based on power struggles. If there ever was an official auxiliary language though, I would wish it to be Ido.
- qsort 5y ago> if that was actually successful It was successful. That language is English, the obvious choice agreed upon by everyone who isn't interested in playing idiotic political games.
- gdsdfe 5y agoYeah for you yes, for others it's synonym with colonialism, and armed invasion.
- qsort 5y agoNot sure who's "you", considering I'm not a native speaker. But that's besides the point, conflating the English language with the foreign policy of the United States is exactly the kind of idiotic political game I was talking about.
- hulug 5y agoAnd for me the word "chair" is synonymous with "Mountain Dew", but fortunately it doesn't matter for the rest of the world. A language has nothing to do with some of its speakers.
- anoncake 5y agoNot an issue in Europe.
- TX0098812 5y agoFrance going for the tower of Babel.
- pavlov 5y agoNobody should take any reporting about EU in the UK press at face value.
- smcl 5y agoOk so Politico then? https://www.politico.eu/article/in-2022-make-french-language-great-again-eu-presidency/ https://www.politico.eu/article/in-2022-make-french-language...
- beebeepka 5y agoThis site is hilarious. It says .eu but supposed European news are just UK news. Need I sa more?
- smcl 5y agoThe front page is covered in non-UK news though? So yes you really need to say more I think. I think we're beyond speculation that this is a story concocted by the UK media - it's picked up in France too https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/la-presidence-francaise-de-l-union-europeenne-est-une-opportunite-historique-pour-la-francophonie-20210408 https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/la-presidence-francaise-de...
- beebeepka 5y agoFrankly, I have no idea what you mean. I just opened the site again and first page is 50% US news, 40% UK and 10% dedicated to whatever...
- smcl 5y agoWell right now Joe Biden has just started a visit to European countries (note the main section on that front page is "Biden in Europe"). This has kicked off in the UK where one of the main points has been the post-Brexit situation with Northern Ireland. As he visits other countries I imagine they will be the focus of the "Biden In Europe" section on that frontpage. Other than those stories I can see: - Belarusian exiles fear Lukashenko’s reach - Macron to Johnson: Not serious to want to review Brexit’s NI protocol - Jail term for man who slapped Emmanuel Macron in the face - European Parliament calls for end of caged farming by 2027 - Belarusian exiles fear Lukashenko’s reach - POLITICO Brussels Playbook: Keeping up with the Johnsons — If Biden says so — Good news for Fidesz - 7 ways Euro 2020 could turn political Could it be that it's just showing different based on location? I'm based in Central Europe, if you're in the UK or USA that might explain a shift in focus? I dunno, I'm guessing but either way we're way off piste here - if you guys still believe the story about France switching the main language of the EU to French during their presidency is a UK media hoax, then I guess we'll see soon enough.
- dvh 5y agoI didn't learn English to understand British. I learned it to understand Americans. So nothing changed for me.
- blocked_again 5y agoAs a non European I find this hillarious and childish.
- ardit33 5y agoIt is a typical French thing. Since they don't have a global influence anymore since WW2, all they can do is throw hissy fits.
- toyg 5y agoA lot of Africans would strongly disagree that France has no "global influence". There are an awful lot of French troops deployed somewhere in Africa right now, and an awful number of African countries still use a French-controlled currency. They just keep playing the imperialism game in a very old-fashioned way, with little care for modern sensibilities.
- smcl 5y agoI'm not sure it's quite that simple - they've held the Presidency multiple times in this period but as far as I know they've not performed an action like this. There's certainly something going on, but it's not just a hissy fit. As others have mentioned it's only for the duration of the French presidency, it'll probably get switched to English when the Czech presidency begins.
- ardit33 5y agoThe next Presidential elections are early next year, that's why. Macron wants to look more important/relevant, and a keeper of french values and cultural importance.
- smcl 5y agoPut that way it doesn't sound much like a typical French thing or a hissy fit, but the sort of thing politicians everywhere do. It's dumb and petty and will probably backfire somehow, but there we go.
- lamontcg 5y agoThey should just flip the ECs English Style Guide to use Americanisms whenever possible (short of flipping the date and numerical formats or using freedum units). Teach everyone to spell it "color" in Europe if you want to be petty back at the Brits.
- beebeepka 5y agoBut French is even worse. To hell with these non-phonetical languages. I am serious. I'd take Latin over these unpredictable monstrosities any day of the week
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tsimionescu 5y agoLiterary French is quite phonetic, at least outside proper names. What are some examples where you feel that French writing is not in a one to one relation with pronunciation?
- dwohnitmok 5y agoApart from all the silent letters, which are fairly regular (and I assume is what you're getting at) there's a fair number of pronunciation exceptions. See the different ways of pronouncing "tous" or the different words that have irregularly silent "l"s (e.g. fusil) and other irregularly silent consonants in the middle of words (e.g. automne). French has quite a lot of exceptions to its pronunciation rules in addition to its already fairly complex regular relationship between letters and sounds. EDIT: Oh I forgot my pet peeve: there are so many exceptions to the pronunciation of "er" that it's kind of misleading to give its pronunciation as the equivalent of an English "a" as in "slate" (hiver, cher, cancer, mer, the list goes on and on and on).
- tsimionescu 5y agoThose are some good examples, you're right. It is quite a bit less regular than I remembered from my high-school days. For 'er' though, isn't the rule essentially that it is pronounced 'a' at the end of verbs, and 'ar' otherwise? I realize that is not a phonetic rule, though.
- dwohnitmok 5y agoUnfortunately no. See e.g. boulanger, cahier, etc. (Although I do believe you're correct about verbs, I wasn't able to think of any verbs that pronounce "er" irregularly). I don't know of any regular, even semantic, rule off the top of my head that covers when it should be pronounced which way for non-verbs. I wonder if someone more versed in French etymology could find one.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- holyknight 5y agoare they retarded?
- ksec 5y agoTl;dr >Drawing up plans for French to replace English as the official “working language” of the EU in 2022. We could pretty much move on until this actually go somewhere or anywhere. And there are enough ( obvious ) reasons listed in other comments.
- bouzouk 5y agoAnyone living in France and knowing how Emmanuel Macron has behaved those past few years can say without a doubt that this article cannot be further from the truth. He has been scorned several times for using English too much, eg for diplomacy between non English speaking countries https://www.francetvinfo.fr/politique/emmanuel-macron/video-le-discours-en-anglais-d-emmanuel-macron-agace-le-front-national_2012618.html https://www.francetvinfo.fr/politique/emmanuel-macron/video-... (sorry, in French :) )
- holyknight 5y agoare they retarded or something?
- dang 5y agoYour comments have been breaking the site guidelines. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, so we don't have to ban you?
- mkl95 5y agoI have had French coworkers at a couple of jobs and all of them speak decent English. Can't be arsed to learn French.
- dragonwriter 5y agoThe weird thing is that the EU doesn’t have a rule on languages already set in a way which puts this out of the reach of an arbitrary dictat of the current holder of the rotating Presidency. Though I suspect this might be thr impetus for changing that once France’s term expires.
- bww 5y agoThe irony here is that English is widely spoken mainly because it is the dominant language in America, a superpower where people resolutely refuse to learn any other languages. Even if France's motivations are purely nationalistic, it's really no different or worse than how we arrived at the status quo.
- allendoerfer 5y agoSo we have massive economic problems, some states on the verge of bankruptcy, a lost generation in Southern Europe, a currency under constant attack, autocratic tendencies and overall differences on social issues in the East, an immigration crisis from Africa and the Near East, threats to the sovereignity of neighbouring countries, literal slums in Rumania and Bulgaria. We are losing the economic battle against the US and China, the militiary one against Russia. We cannot convince either of those to do anything meaningful against climate change. Apparently we can now add an infantility problem to the list.
- Koshkin 5y agoI love French, but I think Spanish would be the best choice. After English.
- kgin 5y agoPhonetic, mostly rule-following, and #3 most-spoken after English and Mandarin.
- Lio 5y agoOne thing English has going for it is fault tolerance. You can speak it pretty “badly” and still be understood fine with a bit of patience. Speak like Yoda you could and still be understood. French is a beautiful language but seems to have a harder time dealing beginners mangling its grammar or pronunciation. (I still really want to learn French though regardless).
- sidpatil 5y agoI'm reminded of this clip from ST:TNG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KlhzX7UKKNU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KlhzX7UKKNU
- popsicum 5y agoIf the request is for longer than 6 months, then I don't get the argument. How is this multiculturalism? I and many other people that rely on English as a language to communicate across nations feel left out. Looking at the comments, there seems to be a distorted impression that EU=France (or any major Western country) and on top of that, the rest of the countries should be grateful for being given a chance to be put in uncomfortable situations that require a costly readaptation, aka, be glad your language skill is now obsolete because we decided so. It's ignorance towards the rest of EU member states. I don't even have a problem with French per say, I speak French and understand the urge to speak your own language. Just the approach of assuming that one of the member states knows best is mind-boggling to me and disrespectful. Looking forward to see the upcoming countries, each getting cocky about forcing their language. That's going to take us nowhere... So much for democracy.
- toyg 5y agoCalm down. This is obviously going nowhere. Nothing is going to change, the French are just sending up some lead balloons for their own media, right before an election year (April 2022 presidentials). Do you really think 26 countries (most of whom don't speak French nor trade primarily with France) will just let Paris lord over them? Of course not. The working languages will stay the same; some overzealous French bureaucrat might try to act a bit snootier for 6 months, but I bet that they'll eventually go back to normal if they want to get shit done.
- popsicum 5y agoIt will not happen overnight but it does fuel nationalistic ideologies which is counterproductive for EU as a whole. Just because a politician got butt hurt and wants to save his face, doesn't mean it's acceptable. I was really looking forward to see the EU flourish for years now and all I see is them concerning with offense, accusations and procrastinating issues or matters that don't serve the union but rather a part of it. EU, just get over it, Brexit happened, whatever.
- toyg 5y ago
- justnotworthit 5y agoThe only thing to see here is the humor of the highest French diplomats reforcing extreme ethnocentric stereotypes about the French people -- the man on the street will snobbishly ignore your request of directions if not attempted in French first -- on the global stage: The EU president will ignore your country's pleas if not communicated in French first.
- Aerroon 5y agoI think that in the long-term it might be better if English didn't become the main language of the EU. It ties us too closely with the US culturally, because the US is a massive native speaker of it. I have no idea what we would replace it with though. Everything seems to have massive problems.
- esyir 5y agoEnglish is already the de facto auxiliary language of the world. The point of a language, above all others, and especially so for governing a union of countries, should be maximising the ease of communication.
- Aerroon 5y agoAnd in the process it kills off the smaller languages in said union along with their culture? Look at France and what happened to their local languages in just a few hundred years.
- Cosmin_C 5y agoThe thing is I fear if they'll try to push AZERTY as EU's "working keyboard layout". Will be the time I'll look into moving to Antarctica.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- musicale 5y agoMakes sense, just as the US abandoned English once it declared independence from Great Britain.
- estaseuropano 5y agoNonsense article. France is pushing for this but the other EU countries have no reason to go along with it. Especially in the East no one speaks French, so their citizens and companies would be at a severe disadvantage - from getting people into EU jobs to the various funding calls for reaearch, digitalization, etc everything is currently in English and most Europeans would suffer from a switch to French. Even Germany has no reason to go along with it as it would downgrade German (currently there are three working languages: EN, FR, DE). The EU still retains two countries with English as official language (Ireland and Malta) and clearly it is the most widely spoken second language. In short: no chance.
- holografix 5y agoYet another example of the EU and its institutions being a reflection of the career academics and politicians that dominate it. Arrogant, privileged, disconnected from reality, risk averse and comfortably protected by the bureaucracy which they use to masquerade the gross in efficiency of the whole apparatus. The UK leaving the EU should have been the loud wake up call it needed to shape up. As it so often happens in arrogant filled relationships, the departing party is appointed the entirety of the blame.
- aristofun 5y agoOmg, this looks so childish, so ignorant, so infantile…
- parski 5y agoI personally love this in a post-Brexit context.
- antirez 5y agoSpanish is the way to go: the most spoken language in the world among the ones spoke in EU, very simple to learn for many countries in EU, quite regular, very spoken in the US. French is a terrible language from the POV of pronunciation rules: it is insane to abandon English to pick the language that gave English many of its problems.