A modest proposal

Europe needs a common language. Here is how it can get one

Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday October 31, 2002
The Guardian

Does anyone here speak European? While Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair row
in "a mixture of French and English", the deepest question underlying
the debate about a constitution for Europe is: what shared language
should a European political community use? This column exclusively
reveals the answer.
Earlier this week I joined a free-for-all, online web chat with the
president of the European Convention, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, to
discuss his outline constitutional treaty. The chat was conducted in 11
different linguistic chatrooms, one for each official language of the
EU.

After half-an-hour, the English-language room was getting restive,
because the president did not seem to be there at all. "At least one
answer from VGE we would not mind," typed Foederali. At last, Conv_EN1
entered the debate. Was he/she the president? No, an interpreter: "I'm
just joining in your discussion because I'm bored. No work is coming my
way." Then we discovered that the president was chatting away vigorously
in the French room. "I have both chatrooms in front of me," wrote
Angelos (a Greek). "The difference is impressing."

"We are arguing and talking among ourselves; the president is talking to
the 'French'," cried Elmo. After about 40 minutes, we started receiving,
via Conv_EN1, a few brief presidential responses. Switching to the
French chatroom, one saw how. The interpreters - from English, Dutch,
Finnish - had translated selected questions into French, injected them
into the French room, and then carried back the answers. Meanwhile,
people in the English-language room debated among themselves - mainly
about what should be, as one of them put it, "the EURO language".
Someone urged, in English, the beauties of Esperanto. Others pushed
English.

"Ante magnum defensorem virtutum patrimoniique communium Europeorum,
lingua utar nostra communi," thundered Ivanus, campaigning for Latin.
Conv_EN1, as him/herself, not the president's voice, irritably
commented: "Well, why not just pick Finnish? Or Hungarian? Or Wolof? Why
a completely new or a dead language?" A Catalonian wanted to know when
Catalan would be an official EU language. "Quid cum lingua catalannica?"
seconded Ivanus. "In this chat," commented Elmo, "we can see the
disadvantages [chaos!] of not having a common second language in the
EU."

Eventually, an answer on the language question came back from the
president himself. "The Convention has not debated the language issue,"
he said.

In another response, in the French room, he added that each new member
state in the enlarged union would have its language as an official EU
language. That's great news for interpreters. The formula for
determining the number of possible interpreting permutations is n 2 -n,
so the current 11 languages produce 110 combinations. With 25 member
states in 2004, you will have some 20 languages - assuming that you
include Maltese, and the Slovaks insist Slovak is quite different from
Czech, but that Cyprus does not bring in Turkish. That makes 380
permutations. Babel is nigh.

Technically, one can cut the exponential by interpreting via English,
although that does increase the time-lag in your earpiece. But this is
not just a technical question. It's about national pride - and it's
about democracy. People do not like having important decisions made
about their lives in a language that is not their own. They don't feel
they are truly participating in such a political community, and they may
reject the results. "Among a people without fellow-feeling," wrote John
Stuart Mill, "especially if they read and speak different languages, the
united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative
government, cannot exist." That's the rule to which Europe is struggling
to be an exception. But how?

Well, sorry Ivanus, but Latin won't do, because nobody apart from you
speaks it. (Sunt lacrimae rerum - you'll know what I mean.) Esperanto is
ridiculous. The only serious candidate is English, the new lingua
franca.

English is spoken by at least 55% of EU citizens. Informal, working
meetings in the EU are already conducted mainly in English, with a fair
amount of French and a little in other tongues. Real life, real time
exchanges between young Europeans are increasingly in English. One saw
this in the English chatroom, where half the participants seemed not to
be native speakers. This English comes with simplified grammar and odd
usages ("the difference is impressing") but it flows on irresistibly.

So why not English? Well, the problem is us. It's impossible for French
amour propre, but also for that of other European linguistic nations, to
accept that the native language of one curmudgeonly major power in the
EU - Albion perfide! - should be the common language of Europe. Can we
think of some way round this? One truthful solution would be to call
Europe's common language American . After all, American is what many
Europeans are actually speaking when they say they're speaking English.
But since, for many Europeans, half the point of having a United Europe
is to stand up to America, choosing American as the language of Europe
would feel odd.

Another way was suggested in the web chat by Suzanne from Holland. (I
know Suzanne is from Holland because of the following exchange: Master:
"Where are you from Suzanne?" Suzanne: "NL." Master: "Dag Suzanne,
spreek je later!") "Euro English is quite neutral," wrote Suzanne, in
the intervals between being chatted up by Master, "it has many
differences with native English." To which Conv_EN1 tetchily replied:
"Euro English isn't neutral - it just isn't English." But Suzanne is
more right than Conv_EN1 (who, one begins to feel, may be a bit of an
English eurosceptic). A Czech friend of mine says there are three kinds
of English: "The English that Czechs speak with Spaniards or that
Italians speak with Finns. There you understand 100%. American English,
you understand 50%. And English English, when you understand nothing."
There is this international English for which our English English is but
an exotic and often incomprehensible dialect. It has been called English
as Lingua Franca - or ELF for short.

So Europe's common language should be ELF. But Europe will never
formally adopt ELF so long as Britain is a major power in the EU. Two
persistent questioners on the chat, Milad and Persia, kept asking Mr
Giscard d'Estaing, again and again: "Mr President, why do you think
England should be part of the EU?" Answer came there none. Finally,
Conv_EN1 passed on this: "To Persia: the UK has been a member of the EU
since (blank, message ended). At that enthusiastic response from Mr
Giscard d'Estaing, the solution to Europe's language problem dawned on
me with the force of revelation.

If Britain really wants to catalyse the formation of a democratic Europe
with a common language, we have to leave the EU - something Mr Giscard
d'Estaing's draft constitutional treaty will, for the first time,
legally allow any member state to do. Let us, like Roman heroes of old,
fall on our sword for the greater good. Led by the "quiet man" of
British politics, Iain Duncan Smith, we should walk out into the
Atlantic, muttering, with true British pluck: "I'm just going outside
and may be some time." Then the continental Europeans can all get on
with speaking English and we, like the quiet man, will simply croak.

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