Babelling on: Brussels versus
the English language
THE ECONOMIST, December 13th
2006
In their loftier moments Brussels
politicians say that languages are an expression of the European Union's unity
in diversity. What they seldom admit is that languages are a logistical and
expensive headache, as well as a cause of nationalistic squabbles. All these could increase when
the tally of
official languages in the EU rises from 20 to 23 on January 1st 2007, with the
addition of Romanian, Bulgarian and Irish.
There is
impeccable democratic logic for the EU to do business in the language of its
citizens: hence the addition of Bulgarian and Romanian when these countries
join next month. It is less obvious why Irish is being added to the list.
Although it is an official language of Ireland, it is a minority one that the
Irish government declined to use when it joined in 1973. The government
concedes that less than half the population can speak it and a mere 5% actually
use it. But Charlie McCreevy, Ireland's European commissioner, insists it is
central to Irish cultural identity.
Asserting cultural
identity may be more important in a growing club. Ireland's decision has raised the stakes for
other countries. Last year Spain requested semi-official status for Catalan,
Galician and Basque. The Spanish government will foot the bill for translation services for
Spaniards who prefer to use those languages. Welsh nationalist politicians are
now lobbying the British government to get the same deal for Welsh, although
not so far to any effect.
Getting national
governments to pick up the
tab for using regional languages can keep the EU's costs down. In 2005
the union spent some €1.1 billion ($1.4 billion) on translation and
interpretation. This pays for staff to interpret at 11,000 meetings a year and
to translate more than 1.3m pages of text. One result of the latest enlargement
is that the commission has instructed officials to write shorter, snappier communications
that cost less to translate. But not all problems are so easy. A plan in 2002
to simplify European patents failed when some countries blocked it because the
new patent would be only in English, French and German. Subsequent efforts to find a compromise
have foundered because of high translation costs.
English, French
and German are the main working languages of the European Commission, a truce agreed some 20
years ago. At that time half of all EU documents were drafted in English. Now it is around
two-thirds, as enlargement to Scandinavia and Eastern Europe has created a
bigger group of people with English as their first choice of second language.
This points to an unsettling conclusion for advocates of multilingualism: in a
union of many languages, increasingly there is but one language.
To do:
- Describe and comment the photo above the text.
- Translate the highlighted
words and phrases in the text above.
- Describe what THE ECONOMIST is.
- Draw up a list of minority languages used in Europe.
Questions:
- Why is Irish being added to
the list of official languages?
- What is the “growing club”
(first sentence, third paragraph)?
- Who do you think should pay
for the cost of translation and interpretation of regional languages at Brussels
(the EU itself or national governments)?
- Who are the “advocates of multilingualism” (last sentence of text)?
- Which language is the most
used in the European Union institutions and why is it the most used?
- Do you defend the use of
several languages for European Union institutions?
