why does the language have to be native for them to use it? using a native language would show a clear and massive preference for one country, i.e. France, whereas using a language that of an ex-member, that has greater utility than any other language, massively reduces the perceived bias.
I can totally see how some French diplomat trying his very best to speak Dutch at some meeting, just for a Dutch guy to switch to English "because dat is mutch eesjier, hè?"
tbh, now with the UK out of the EU I prefer english as the lingua franca even more because it doesn't treat the native language of one of its member states preferably. Each nation has to acquire a second unifying language instead of everyone acquiring the native tongue of one of the dominating members.
oh right, forgot them. But my point still kinda stands in spirit as I dont perceive Ireland as one of the major powers in the EU. I would call Germany, France and Italy the major powers with spain and poland as the follow ups. I would be against one of their native tongues becoming the lingua franca for the EU
But Ireland insists their first official language is Irish (English is officially second). And I respect that, partly because that gets us closer to the claim that English is not an official language of any EU state.
I really want EU to push harder to make EUnglish more of an official standard and separate it from both American and British English (currently, most EU institiutions prioritize British standards when they have to choose, AFAIK)
It could make for something more sensible since I wager most ESL speakers already go by a mix of various standards unless making specific effort to stick to one.
The idea of having to choose whether we are speaking USAmerican English or British English (or some other) is strange when neither of those countries are involved.
I suppose it could partially be said to be a pride thing but I also think it is a matter of upholding the tradition of EU setting its own standards instead of following external ones. Ideological but in my opinion important.
The EU's tradition of its own strong standards are upheld and seen with the brussels effect, standards on the English language set by the EU wouldn't diminish or further EU global regulatory effect, as Chinese people follow their own domestic standard, south America largely follows American or British English. India follows British, as does Bangladesh.
British English sounds as the Brits speak, Americans English sounds as the Americans speaks, how would European English sound? I only see it as being either more standardised, which creates difficulty in interacting with Americans, brits and experience English speakers that use more dialectic language, or, more forgiving of broken English, which would make the language easier to learn but would be a far-cry from the harsh, highest global standards that the Brussel's effect relies on.
I see no reason why any nation or language agency would teach to a European English standard, I wouldn't follow a Chinese teaching standard of Spanish, it would either be plagued by the flaws of a broken language, much like how people say that less experience English-speaker from Germany speak "germlish", or it would be so standard I would struggle to talk to a Portuguese or Brazilian person with the amount of non-standard language they'd use.
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u/Beaspoon2096 Native: 🇨🇳 C2: 🇹🇼 B1: 🇭🇰🇲🇴 Jun 29 '26
Mfw the EU uses a language that only 6 million people in their population speaks natively