EU Leader Says English Is Losing Importance (politico.eu) 711
An anonymous reader writes: Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, opted to deliver a speech in French on Friday morning because he said "English is losing importance" in Europe. He gave the comments, which are unlikely to mend fences after a war of words between Brussels and London over Brexit negotiations, at the "State of the Union" conference in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio -- an annual event for European dignitaries. Juncker said he was opting for French because "slowly but surely English is losing importance in Europe and France has elections this Sunday and I want the French people to understand what I am saying about the importance of the EU." He spoke in English.
... Says the Frenchman (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course someone who speaks French thinks English is "losing importance." They've been asserting that for decades now, because they are delusional. Anybody who ever has needed to deal with software written in France by French companies knows just how arrogant they are about speaking and writing French and only French, even if it means inconveniencing literally everyone else around them.
Re:... Says the Frenchman (Score:5, Informative)
Some software is pretty good from France. VeraCrypt is a good example of something well made.
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Re:... Says the Frenchman (Score:4, Funny)
Was it written in a French-based programming language, or an English one?
Since i am a Greek, when communicating with Barbarians like you i am forced to use a Barbaric language (in my case the -common among Barbarians- language called English) instead of the language of the Gods: Greek!
But a PROGRAMING language based in French or English (or any other "natural" language)? Does such a thing exist? I always though that the -few- "natural" words used in any programing language can easily be translated in any natural language (and even better: use symbols/ideograms instead!) since the syntax/phrasing is so simple: a mathematic language actually.
P.S. Sorry for my English... but then again: it is not my fault that you are barbarians and can not communicate in Greece!
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Since i am a Greek, when communicating with Barbarians like you i am forced to use a Barbaric language (in my case the -common among Barbarians- language called English) instead of the language of the Gods: Greek!
I've known several Greeks over the years, and all of them have said basically this to me at some point.
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I always though that the -few- "natural" words used in any programing language can easily be translated in any natural language
Perhaps, but aside from the keywords all the standard library function names are in english, all the standard library intellitext documentation is in english; all the comments, constant names, #defines and macro names, are in English.
If you have the source for the standard libraries, all the internal class and member names, variable names, function names, and even the comments, etc ... are all in English.
Then all the compiler warnings, and compilation errors, runtime exceptions, etc... in many cases aren't
Re:... Says the Frenchman (Score:5, Insightful)
Was it written in a French-based programming language, or an English one?
There's a Brazilian language called 'Lua' whose control structures are English words [if, while, etc]. Why reinventing the wheel? No reason to be chauvinist about it.
You don't understand the Francophone world then. Be in Quebec or France, they actually write laws about making it illegal to use words that are from other languages.
One day "Le Weekend" is understood and used by everyone, the next it has been outlawed and illegal to use in mass media. It's a very chauvinistic attitude.
Compare the French to the Germans, who not only embrace all sorts of languages, it is considered educated to know and use words from other languages in their speech and adopt them into German.
Which sounds the healthier attitude to you?
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That's because French used to jave a major world importance, which then faded and was replaced by English. When English loses world importance you will be seeing Brits and Americans becoming chauvinistic about the language as well. It's already pretty true, just witness the American tourists who seem angry that they can't be understood in some places.
I liked the attitude in Finland, which was "why the hell do you want to learn Finnish?"
Re: ... Says the Frenchman (Score:5, Informative)
Doing Business in Quebec [educaloi.qc.ca]
Website in English? [www.cbc.ca]
If your trademark isn't french, add french to it [www.cbc.ca]
Language Police [wikipedia.org]
C'est l'état de la grenouille. Mort à la liberté~~
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I guess you failed English coprehension, as all of those links provide plenty of support for French-only stuff.
BTW, I've been in Quebec. I've also done business with Quebec, years later. So I can personally say that yes, there are quite strict laws regarding when a foreign language is allowed to be used, otherwise you're FORCED to use French (or the bastardization of it that the Quebecois call 'French.')
Re: ... Says the Frenchman (Score:5, Informative)
He is not really French, he is from Luxembourg where French is one of 3 official languages. This is like calling an Irishman a Brit, or an Englishman. Only 16% of the population are native French speakers, although 96% of the population is fluent in French. The primary native language is Luxembourgish, which is closer to German than French.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Luxembourg
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In accordance with the EU population, the most widely spoken mother tongue is German (16%), followed by Italian and English (13% each), French (12%), then Spanish and Polish (8% each).
After Brexit, it will be worse. It's true that English is used as a second language by a significant portion of the population, but the same can be said for many other languages, given that much of the population speaks 2 or more languages. Interestingly, the UK is among the lowest ranking countries when it comes to being able to speak in a second language.
Current EU population is 504 million. The UK is 64 million, of which 88% (56 million) speak
Re:... Says the Frenchman (Score:5, Informative)
English is not the #1 language in the EU, even before Brexit"
In accordance with the EU population, the most widely spoken mother tongue is German (16%), followed by Italian and English (13% each), French (12%), then Spanish and Polish (8% each).
Check your stat definitions before using them to make a point. Those are 'native tongue' percentages. 51% speak English.
Re:... Says the Frenchman (Score:5, Insightful)
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tabarnak, les francais francaises connu-pas le vrai francaises quebecois esti.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Trop de francaises!
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I believe that it is a French tradition to declare English to be a dying language on Star Wars Day (May 4) every year. The practice purportedly dates back at least to 1415AD when Charles the VI's inflamatory anti-English language Star Wars Day speech purportedly led directly to the Battle of Agincourt in October of that year and thus to a dramatic change in direction in the Hundred Years War.
(Charles VI was reportedly exceptionally crazed even for a 15th Century European monarch.)
what a moron... (Score:2)
Re:what a moron... (Score:5, Insightful)
english is waning...you go right ahead and believe that
This may be true one day. But my money would be on Chinese, not French, as the successor.
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Chinese is too difficult for non-native speakers to ever become a glue language that business people would want to learn to speak to other non-native Chinese speakers. Also, almost all Chinese people speak a second language. Younger people English, older people Russian.
Spanish or German are the only really viable alternatives to English for that use case in most of the world. And what business uses as a glue language is the one that parents will want children to learn in school.
Chinese is a useful language
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You can call it simple, but it isn't, really. You could also deny that it's a single language...and that's "sort of" correct. Mandarin and Cantonese aren't *that* different. The problem, traditionally, is that because it was a tonal language, different villages could be mutually unintelligible. Tonal languages are subject to strong pressures for variation as different people have difficult in speaking, or hearing different tones. So there is a quick separation as different populations learn from differ
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Indeed. When I speak Spanish people often say it's a load of bollocks.
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Arabic, sadly.
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But my money would be on Chinese, not French, as the successor.
My money would be on anything but French as the successor. French has been withering for over a century.
Re:what a moron... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have a speech on the importance of the EU and you want to direct it at a French population who are about to go to the polls, and the outcome of those polls could determine the future of the EU, what's more important? That you speak in English or in French?
Context, it fucking matters.
He is anything but a moron.
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If you have a speech on the importance of the EU and you want to direct it at a French population who are about to go to the polls, and the outcome of those polls could determine the future of the EU, what's more important? That you speak in English or in French?
Context, it fucking matters.
He is anything but a moron.
Well, another observation is that he might simply pandering to the increased sense of *nationalism* that every country seems to be experiencing these days.
In politics, flattery will get you everywhere and tamping down any chance of a Frexit is probably Juncker's number one goal...
Of course he isn't a moron, he is a politician which requires the talent to be able to speak out of all sides of one's mouth...
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The ones that don't speak Mandarin.
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With India being the most populous English speaking country in the world, I am thinking English will continue to be somewhat relevant. I do believe the speak is correct in that English is waning. US is in decline and as long as India doesn't get their affairs in order, Mandarin and simplified Chinese are going to be the next languages of choice.
The UK decided nationalism is for them which is sad considering at one point in time they were the largest empire not a century ago.
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Even people so stupid they can't tell the difference between "is not decreasing in use" and "is the only important thing" realize they better learn a few words of it, eh?
Baka baka baka sou da ne?
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Fortunately (or unforunately), IT will affect this (Score:5, Interesting)
since this is the case, any country wanting "in" on the booming IT industry will have to know some basic English. The English speaking community got the core computer programming/formatting languages out first and as usual, first to publish will have more control it long term.
Re:Fortunately (or unforunately), IT will affect t (Score:4, Informative)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Head of the Corner Burger Stand announces "McDonalds is losing importance."
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Cow says, "eat mor chikin".
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English "losing"? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many Chinese speak English compared with Français?
How many Indians speak English compared with Français?
How many Japanese speak English compared with Français?
C’est un homme stupide
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Far more speak English than French. Far more speak English than German. German and French are almost equal though very differently distributed.
More speak English than French and German combined.
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Which misses the point. He was taking about the languages used in the EU. With the UK leaving, France and Germany are now picking up things like financial services that are leaving London. This is their moment to grab a huge slice if the pie that the UK is abandoning.
Which misses the point. He was taking about the languages used in the EU
No he wasn't. He was talking TO FRANCE. He was talking AT FRANCE. If he was talking to the finance industry he'd be speaking English, not in a language they don't understand.
Anyway my reply to the GP was not in the context of Junker's message to France, but rather directly to the GP talking about English losing the EU .... even without the UK it will still be a language understood by 220 million more people than French.
Brexit (Score:3, Insightful)
Each new day yields another affirmation of the wisdom of UK deplorables.
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How so? Because the head of the EU in a speech addressed directly to French people a day out of an election decided rightfully that speaking in French is far more important to get his point to the right people?
I'm still keen to hear what wisdom is on offer from a country who by every recent poll quite drastically regrets their knee jerk decision.
Re:Junke speaks English (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read the article, he spoke in English because he wanted the English to understand him, and it's not like the majority of the UK speak ANY second language.
How do you expect to have an effective negotiating team when the people on the opposite side of the table can understand everything you say, but also have private conversations right in front of your face because you don't know any second language? Make fun of you with a straight face? Say that the only difference between you and a bucket of shit is the bucket? Debate strategy in private without leaving the room or whispering amongst themselves? Call you a dumb f*ck to your face?
He's right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well to be fair, England leaving the EU does indeed make English less important in the EU.
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Re:He's right? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:He's right? (Score:5, Informative)
But does it really? Let's remove the UK from the EU. The remaining population: Are they more likely to speak English or french?
Outside of France, Belgium and Luxembourg which shared common territories recently enough that the language is adopted in the country who else speaks French:
Netherlands 29%
Roumania 17%
Ireland 17%
Italy 16%
Portugal 15%
Germany 14%
Austria 11%
The rest 10%
So way to go, your speech was not understood by the vast majority of the population. Now let's do the same thing to English.
Ireland 95%
Netherlands 90%
Sweeden 86%
Denmark 86%
Austria 70%
Finland 70%
Slovenia 59%
Germany 56%
Belgium 52%
I'm not going to list all the rest, but not a single country in the EU has less than 20% proficiency in English.
No, not really (Score:5, Insightful)
For one, English is still the language of the United States who is still and exceedingly important trade and military partner with most of the world. That alone makes English pretty important. Likewise while the UK may be leaving the EU, they'll still be trading with the EU, nothing really changes there.
However the real importance of English comes not from the nations where it is the primary language, but all the nations where it isn't. The reason is that while English is only the 3rd or 4th most spoken first language it is, by a mile, the most spoken second language in the world. When people from different nations get together to do business, English is generally the language they use. Chinese is not widely spoken in Japan and Japanese is sure as hell not popular in China, but English is a common second language in both and so usually used when companies from the two nations do business.
In the EU it is even more important as there are a ton of primary languages. If you wanted to do business in the native language of all EU nations you'd need to speak Dutch, French, German (a couple variants thereof), Danish, Irish, Greek, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish, Hungarian, Greek, Turkish, Czech, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak, Slovene, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Croatian. While you can find people with that kind of language skill, they are very rare and very sought after. Getting one for your firm is unlikely... However English is a popular second language in all those places, so you can do business in that. You can have people from Germany, Croatia, Greece, and Spain all at a table and English is a language they can probably all use whereas the likelihood that they all speak each other's native tongue is pretty low.
English has become the language of common exchange, and nothing seems to be changing that. Should another language take over for that, French is not likely to be it, much though the French may wish it was.
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How so?
Do I now learn slowenian or serbian to talk with girls from there? Or should I learn frensh, and have a funny sexy accent? Or is it better to stick to english as the people from there likely speak english anyway?
The BREXIT will basically change nothing for the rest of the EU, I doubt we even bother to remove it from the list of official languages to translate legislative texts into.
The only changes will be:
a) banking fees for transfering money into and out of the UK
b) data and speech roaming fees
c) p
Qu'est-ce que tu as pu dire à propos de moi, (Score:2, Funny)
Qu'est-ce que tu as pu dire à propos de moi, petite chienne?
Huh (Score:2, Funny)
Funny, I was just thinking the EU was losing importance...
Pourquoi? (Score:3)
Its a good thing when there are fewer barriers to communication in the world. English for the most part, won on the global stage as the cross-over language. Short of another World War, I see little likelihood of this ever changing, especially when considering its embedded adoption in the technology sector.
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I can see Mandarin Chinese taking over, especially if China is the first to colonize the Moon and other planets, while other nations are chasing their tails.
Re:Pourquoi? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well... (Score:2)
A petty if not justifiable or desperate move from EU.
It's basically on the brink of collapse, and that's not exactly a good thing. If France elects Marine Le Pen and goes for Frexit, EU is basically over. I didn't think they'd make it this obvious, but of course the only move EU has right now is to the ego of the richest countries left.
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You don't frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur King," you and all your silly English K-nig-hts.
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If France elects Marine Le Pen, I think the world is probably over.
Trump, Le Pen, Kim, and Putin all leaders at the same time?
The world couldn't handle it.
Should be German (Score:3)
"Why do we have to speak English?" (Score:5, Funny)
Don't know if this is true, but it's a damn good story:
At a NATO military conference, the French admiral was complaining, "Why do we have to speak English at all of these events?"
The Dutch admiral replied, "Because the British, Canadians, and Americans made sure we don't have to speak German."
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Don't know if it's true, but I absolutely love it regardless.
Das ist grossartig!
C'est vrai (Score:4, Funny)
When he realises English is the lingua franca in Europe I shall experience great schadenfreude.
French lost its importance 100 years ago (Score:3)
Les Raisins Aigres! (Score:3)
I have a lot of French and Russian friends that i've made during my travels. One thing that i've noticed between them is a sort of mild cultural annoyance that their language isn't as dominant like English or even to an extent Spanish.
The UK was an EU anchor tenant. No amount of EU sour grapes will change that fact. Even without them, everyone will still be wanting to speak English.
Please read this as what it means (Score:2)
The EU head honcho says English is losing importance after the UK leaves the EU.
It's left as an exercise to the reader to determine whether this message is backed by
a) reality
b) politics
Dominance, Not Importance (Score:2)
The real problem of English in the EU (Score:5, Informative)
is that once the UK leaves, English will no longer be an official language of any UE member country. Ireland declared Irish and Malta declared Maltese as their official language for EU purposes, even if their people speak mostly English.
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English is important, but if a language replaces it as a common tongue, it likely won't be a European language. If it shifts, it will be Mandarin/Cantonese, or Arabic. Maybe even Russian.
If not English, Spanish would be the more logical choice, imho.
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Mandarin/Cantonese and Arabic are complicated languages which are wholly unsuited to keyboards.
And Russian... why in the world would we want to speak Russian?
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For the cyka blyat!
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What gives you the idea that criticizing Mandarin and ignoring Russian means that I'm defending English?
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lingua franca
Probably a Frankish language, or maybe even French?
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Espronto.
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Exactly. The "Big Two" European languages are German and French, and Poles, Swedes, Czechs, etc are going to learn German before French...
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Only because English is an official language of only one EU country + a few micro nations.
But in terms of proficiency of language English is more widely understood throughout Europe than German and French combined. So regardless of what's official, English is by far the most important.
While you're right about which will learn German over French, it does gloss over the fact that of all the countries you listed English is by far the dominant, again even when you combine German and French.
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Gewesen da, getan das. Scheiße war Bargeld.
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He probably doesn't realize that all the French voter rolls are processed and the data input by Bulgarians who don't speak French.
Without using English, they wouldn't even be able to have their ballots printed.
All their government documents have to be translated into all the dozens of EU languages... by the same people. And those people only speak Bulgarian, English, and German. Very few people in the world want to learn French, and that includes people who translate French documents all day! It also includ
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Of course he did. He was addressing the English speaking people at the time and telling them exactly why it is so important right now (on the eve of an election in France that will decide the fate of the EU in a literal sense) that he speaks French.
Today English is the most spoken language. But in terms of the future of the EU it is by far not the most important.
Sunday after the election one hopes that this will change again.
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Yes, interesting. What makes you think he did? According to all news reports I have been able to find, he spoke French.
I may have been mistaken. I may have read this quote and misapplied "The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said he would deliver his speech in English. “ If incorrect thanks for pointing that out.
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Over 50% of people in the EU will still understand English to a competent level because it is the language of international business and taught in many schools. It is true, statistically, almost no one will be speaking English as their native language once the UK leaves (although a decent % of Ireland speak English in their homes).
English will still be the most understood language in the EU even if not the native tongue.
German will be the most common native tongue in EU (as it already is).
French is only re
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On the world scale, the francophonie has more than 50 full members (84 if you include observers), even excluding the Central African Republic and Thailand (human rights violations).
Those countries comprise a billion people [wikipedia.org]. Those "parts of the world they once occupied" are hardly insignificant.
From a worldwide perspective outside those areas they are. Most of the French speaking countries outside Europe are impoverished and not very well connected globally. That might change in the future, but there isn't really anywhere near as much reason to learn French as an outsider than there is English.
It could all be down to 19th century policies. The British knew their territories were too widespread to try to hold on to forever purely using military domineering, and so tried to make their presence at
Re:Juncker probably the most unpopular man in the (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's look at The Numbers [wikipedia.org]:
Number of native English speakers: 500 million
Number of native French speakers: 80 million
Number of 2nd language English speakers: 510B
Number of 2nd language French speakers: 192M
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Number of 2nd language English speakers: 510B
Number of 2nd language French speakers: 192M
Assuming the B stands for billions I'm sure many would like to know how far our galactic empire stretches. Realistically yeah I agree, if people speak a second language it's by far likely to be English.
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Haitian Creole (a local variant of French).
Hatian Creole [wikipedia.org] is not mutually intelligible with French.
In West Africa, many people speak French, but few of them speak it as their mother tongue.
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Thailand is neither a member of the francophonie, nor was it ever colonized/occupied by European conquerors.
That is one reason why the Thai consider themselves so special.
While most Thai learn English, many speak several local languages and understand or even speak Mandarin.
Re:Juncker probably the most unpopular man in the (Score:5, Interesting)
Once the UK leaves, English will be the mother tongue of less than 1% of the EU. It's the Brexiters who are doing the bashing to their own language by reducing its relevancy.
Last summer my wife and I toured the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary. We encountered language barrier issues exactly zero times. Everybody we met - hotel staff, merchants, even random people in the street when we needed directions - understood and spoke English more than adequately for the purpose. Also true to a slightly lesser extent when we visited Amsterdam a few years back. I suspect tourism drives this as much as any other factor. We met a group of people travelling together who were from Sweden, and they spoke English so fluently and accent-free that I was shocked to learn where they were from (I had been guessing Canada).
Re:Juncker probably the most unpopular man in the (Score:4)
Question is: will the French be as valiant in defending their language from being supplanted by Arabic, in the same way that they are vis a vis English? The Moors would be a lot more virulently anti French than the English ever were, even during the 100 years war.
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Junker is generally regarded increasingly as a clown. Even with people who are actually pro-EU (like myself).
The sooner this bozo goes the better.
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He should have said "Obviously I want to be understood by the French, but it is equally important than I am understood by the rest of the world."
Re:Classic French politician. (Score:5, Informative)
The guy is from Luxembourg, not France.
Re:Another off-topic useless, #fakenews msmash pos (Score:4, Funny)
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You're mistaken. Counties are allowed multiple official languages. Ireland and Malta have English as one of theirs, so the eu will be obligated to keep English not just for reasons of practicality.
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Are other languages any better? Spanish has about 50 verb tenses. French is almost as strange for pronunciation as English, in fact some of the strangest words in English are FROM French. Mandarin might have easy grammar, but Chinese writing is beyond PITA.
Languages are like computer operating systems; they all suck, but in different ways.
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I really wish this were true, but it's just so far from reality. Political grandstanding of the worst order. As someone who speaks the broken English of a U.S. American, I think it is a terrible language and absolutely should not be the "universal" language of the world. It's just bad. Not particularly expressive, difficult for newcomers to learn, ridiculous, inconsistent grammar rules, etc.
However actual usage patterns and current language theory from articles I've read seem to say the exact opposite. English's willingness to mangle its grammar, borrow loan words, and define meaning by use makes it easier to learn, more expressive, and adopted more widely than the languages. The opposite side of things would be French with their Académie française which seems to be losing out due to its rigidity.