The politics of language
My gratitude to Andis Kaulins at the informative EU pundit weblog for including Wired Temples on the blogroll (favourite links). Andis, who is blogging for a better Europe, is co-author of the leading RoutledgeLangenscheidt English-German Dictionary of Business, Commerce and Finance . From his latest post about the languages of the European Union:
As the major index pages of the official EU websites demonstrate, the European Union is a multi-cultural unification of many countries and many languages. The current 25 Member States of the European Union represent 20 official languages of the EU. Irish (Gaelic) is regarded to be an official EU language for primary legislation. Languages are and will continue to be an important EU issue. For example, what should be the languages at universities within the EU?
Expatica.com via DPA has a February 10, 2005 article enititled English rules the European Union, in which they report that there had been a marked increase in the teaching of English in Eastern Europe since 1998. Germany came in second and France third as the chosen second language of instruction.
However, to say that "English rules the European Union" is overstating the case a bit. Over the years, we have had business to do at several EU organizations in Luxembourg and have occasionally had difficulty finding English-language speakers among the rank and file (especially at the front door, where you need it most) with French clearly dominating. It all depends on where you look. In Luxembourg, it is French (or Luxembourgish, also called Lëtzebuergeusch) which has the upper hand, at least in the lower echelons.
EU still desperately short of Maltese translators and interpreters - Euractiv
How do you say accession in Maltese - Deutsche Welle
'Ma' nitghallmu qatt' - the politics of translation - Mark Vella in Luxembourg
posted by Robert Micallef at 2/11/2005 04:50:00 PM
Just a comment re. language in Luxembourg. Luxembourgish is not French, but it is a German dialect. It is widely used as the standard medium of conversation.
French is more of an official language. Everyone is fluent in it. It is used for most signage and other literature. The Luxembourgish parliament debates in the national language but drafts its laws in French.
German is also spoken in the east German frontier cantons. What is interesting that due to the fcat that there is a considerable Portuguese community in Luxembourg, there is a trend to use Portuguese in certain communications (eg. bank statments)
Just a comment re. language in Luxembourg. Luxembourgish is not French, but it is a German dialect. It is widely used as the standard medium of conversation.
French is more of an official language. Everyone is fluent in it. It is used for most signage and other literature. The Luxembourgish parliament debates in the national language but drafts its laws in French.
German is also spoken in the east German frontier cantons. What is interesting that due to the fcat that there is a considerable Portuguese community in Luxembourg, there is a trend to use Portuguese in certain communications (eg. bank statments)
That's right Mark,
The interesting thing about Luxembourgish is that there was a substantial drive to promote the use of the language in parallel to the development of the EU over the last half century
I am incensed when foreigners call our language an Arabic dialect and at the fact that in all French reference books we are said to be "Arabophone". It is the "dialect" bit that upsets me and the fact that after 1000 years of evolution Maltese is not universally recognised as a language.
I would not therefore refer to Luxembourgish as a dialect. Do we refer to English as a German dialect?
Yes, Maltese is a complete language in it's own right. Official status in the EU should help but this should be linked to the setting up of proper language institutions as well as effective monitoring of language use in the media and public affairs.
Re Mark Vella's posting,
Good correction, thank you. I am aware that Luxembourgish is not the same as French and that it has strong ties to German, but I surely did not write that correctly in that blog posting. I will post some links on Luxembourgish soon (and also some materials on Malta, as I have looked at Mark's blog Xifer).
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