Why doe the EU not use English?

Niv

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

Cambridge 1969. Latin O-level was an entry requirement.

Fair enough, at least we know what recent is to you, I just dont concider recent to be from a time before I was born!

Cheers, :j

Niv

pqrdef

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

Cambridge 1969. Latin O-level was an entry requirement.

No it wasn't. It was a common misconception, much propagated by Latin teachers who didn't want to be out of work.

atush

Having been educated in the USA at a top state school, latin and greek weren't covered as a whole language in high school (are at university), but were learnt to understand the roots of english words. Very helpful should you move on from english to one of the latin based european languages.

My boys grammar school didn't have it.

Lizling

The German president suggested back in February that English should become the EU's lingua franca. The French weren't keen though.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/24/europa-english-official-language-eu

zagubov

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

Cambridge 1969. Latin O-level was an entry requirement.

It was wider than that. Incidentally I gather in the early twentieth century you hd to learn German to study chemistry.

I used to be puzzled when I read about the great medieval and renaissance thinkers of Europe flitting from university to university in one country after another with little apparent trouble until I realsied they all spoke enough Latin to teach everywhere.

On another matter if you wanted to study Film Studies AS/A level you used to need GCSE French.

I've often thought you need to teach foreign classical language to everybody.

When I think how much vocabulary there is in Science that has classical roots, it's incredibly useful to know the prefixes and suffixes and what they mean. Antigen is just Newspeak for Antibody Generator, but so many other words are just composites of Greek/Latin roots e.g microscope.

olly300

zagubov wrote: »

When I think how much vocabulary there is in Science that has classical roots, it's incredibly useful to know the prefixes and suffixes and what they mean. Antigen is just Newspeak for Antibody Generator, but so many other words are just composites of Greek/Latin roots e.g microscope.

If you speak to keen gardeners they pick up bits of Latin.

Knowing the roots of the English language does help you however as people can get by without it, it's not taught any more unless you want to study certain types of history and archaeology.

BobQ

Lizling wrote: »

The German president suggested back in February that English should become the EU's lingua franca. The French weren't keen though.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/24/europa-english-official-language-eu

It makes a lot o sense to adopt English. It seems to be the language of choice.

In the Eurovision Song Contest voting (the only part of it I ever watch!) 20 years ago there were a small minority of nations that reported votes in French. Nowadays its just the French that report in French.

Translation services are increasingly wasteful. I once attended an EU meeting and it was noticeable that only the French delegate spoke in French and she only did that for the formal introductions before reverting to English.

canny_lass_2

It still amazes me that wherever I travel around the world, I can always find somebody who speaks English. We are a lazy nation when it comes to learning other languages, me included.

olly300

The reason there are so many English speakers is because of films and music.

Ideally everyone in the UK should be taught Spanish as a second language.

1. There are enough films and music to keep people interested.
2. There are a lot of Spanish speakers around the world who don't speak English.
3. It's easier for us to learn than tonal languages i.e. Mandarin
4. I've found Spanish speaking people much nicer than a lot of speakers of other European languages when you mispronounce their language.