Europe may mean a lot of different things to different people, some politics, others food. But one of the first things that comes to mind is the rich languages that they use. In this post I will briefly cover the links above.
Eddie Izzard shares with the journalist how he has tried to overcome language barriers when preforming his standup in "What humans should do is come together. Speaking other languages is a way of reaching people and saying I respect you to want to speak your language." because of this he has made the effort to translate his show so that it does not just make sense to the audience but so that is actually funny- idioms don't always translate. And if they do the cultural understanding is not always there.
European parliament is a hub of different languages, from English to German, Swiss to Flemish. But there is one office that does something a little different.
"In Marani's office, employees have been experimenting with "Europanto", which he describes as "der jazz des linguas":
a freestyle mash-up language made up of the common body of European
languages, without grammar rules and an unlimited vocabulary." Some of you may have heard of Europanto before however it is not widely known; as I type this the computer has added that fine, red wiggly line of disapproval. The idea was to try and create a more communal sense about Europe, that there would be a shared language based upon the principal of word borrowing. That was in 1996. Make of that what you will. However the language does have a slightly interesting history and can be viewed in full on its Wikipedia page (do not try googling it, not only are most of the pages non translatable but are also long out of date).
The article goes on to tell us of how it has been suggested by the German Chancellor that it may be a sensible decision to have everything in English. This seems a sensible idea at first, its one of the most widely understood language and would save time and potentially money by only having only one language.
But there is one simple reason why they probably wont change to just English. Money. Currently if any discussion or debate continues past eleven at night the translators fees increase. Therefore decisions are reached quicker. If everything was in English this would be lost. There is also the fact that somewhere along the line it would need to be translated anyway. Despite each country understanding English to some extent, the idea is that all countries are coming together on equal grounds, each country does have a chance at the presidency (currently it is Ireland) on rotation. Its a difficult debate, I'm going to leave this one to the politicians.
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