Society Is the EU fostering the use of English across Europe ?

It is very clear that English as a global language has brought us enormous benefits in all aspects of society, which has greatly promoted our economic development. To begin with, as a tool of cross-cultural communication, English promotes mutual understanding and friendship, removing prejudice and hostlity. It is no exaggeration to say that English helps maintain the world peace.

Globally adoption of a uniform language, most likely English, is one of the key requirements for transition of human civilization from type 0 to type 1 on the Kardashev scale.

How terribly kind of you to say so, old fruit! Thankyou from an Englishman [sipping tea as I post].
 
It is nice going to Europe and finding that most people speak English. Or atleast have a hint on what your applying.

I remember when I was younger I went to Greece with my family and we went to the beach. I went out and started playing with all these native kids and even though we did not speak the same language we all had a great time :LOL:
 
From a swedish perspective I think that many who are anti-American due to their politics, often admire the culture. And they have much to be admired as well as much to dislike. As we never dubbed or used voice over, we are bombarded with english music, english movies on tv and cinema, and the Internet's language has up til now been mainly or majorly english. If one is a computer programmer one must or should know basic english as computer languages are syntaxed in it. A pilot must speak english wherever they come from. English is simply the worlds most important language of our time.

But I agree it's an easier language than most in Europe, but I think that it's also due to that it's the real and living esperanto of our continent. English is a linguistic mut, because of all the different historic invasions leaving a linguistic imprint every time. It helps that it has it's Latin, German, French and Scandinavian heritage.

I would like to try to correct a frequent misconception in the use of English regarding the forms of "its" and "it's" which are very commonly misused.
"its" is a possessive pronoun, pronoun meaning "instead of a noun". It DOES NOT take an apostrophe. Examples.."a dog and its master", "a car and its passengers". Where the original form may have been "the dog's master", the apostrophe here does not move when the form "its master" is used.
"it's" is NOT a possessive form, but a short form, used instead of "it is" "it has" etc.
"It's going to rain today", "it's been a long time since I saw her".
It may be a puzzle sometimes as English does have idiosyncrasies! Hope this helps.
 
Well for the majority of people who use this board, English is not a first language and I'd be happy if I could express myself half as well as the users here, in a language not my own. Do you have something to add to the topic by any chance?

Back to the discussion, I think that the US has much to offer to the world and has exported and sold itself as a product exceptionally well over the years. The problem is that it has now reached saturation point and, like any other aggressively marketed product, most people have tired of the sales pitch and we are now seeing a backlash toward the US. It is unfortunate that many in the US have made the basic mistake of believing their own propoganda, so whether or not the problem will be recognised and the US can adjust themselves according to current trends remains to be seen.
 
I think the only reason is "Hollywood" , most of the childrens want to learn english because they want to learn the language of the best movies in the world:)
There is a part that learn english beacus of the music...
 
Maciamo has indeed posted a very thoughtful text, but I think, like me, he oversees the roots of english spreading in the EU. We are both children of the cold war, and up to roughly 1990, the US had military bases all over Europe. The US being our big brother protecting us from the communist bullies, and our big brother being so bad at learning the languages of the countries hosting its troops, we got exposed to english in a way we were not until then. Michael had a very insightful comment, music and movies have penetrated the social tissue since the 1980es, to the point that in France, radios have to broadcast french songs a certain percentage of their airtime, not to mention the seriously insane rule of using french words, regardless of how stupid they sound, to avoid anglicismes taking roots and denaturing la belle langue française...
 
Basically, yes. But it is still relatively unsteady. If to imagine a hypothetical situation when Great Britain leaves the European Union, it can be restoration of positions of the French language, and even greater spread.. In additives quickly growing language group in the neighbourhood in Africa as expected is french-speaking people.


Heard from an American diplomat: "French, who speaks french nowadays, apart from waiters and some african dictators...?"
 
Actually the VAST majority of white people in America come from the people of the British Isles, especially English. Self-declared ethnicities have very little to do with the real picture. Some Americans can be made up from 10+ ethnicites.
Not to forget that English people have been present in the USA the longest, AND English people made up the single greatest nationality emigrating to the USA up until the late 1800s when more of them began going to Australia instead.
It is ridiculous to say most Americans come from Germans, or Irish. No. English is the greatest ethnicity in America.
Even so, the vast majority of English people came from Germany and France so it is an endless trail of ethnicity.

The actual resolution of this = whether English, Irish, German, French, Spanish or Italians they are all WHITE.
 
Actually the VAST majority of white people in America come from the people of the British Isles, especially English. Self-declared ethnicities have very little to do with the real picture. Some Americans can be made up from 10+ ethnicites.
Not to forget that English people have been present in the USA the longest, AND English people made up the single greatest nationality emigrating to the USA up until the late 1800s when more of them began going to Australia instead.
It is ridiculous to say most Americans come from Germans, or Irish. No. English is the greatest ethnicity in America.
Even so, the vast majority of English people came from Germany and France so it is an endless trail of ethnicity.

The actual resolution of this = whether English, Irish, German, French, Spanish or Italians they are all WHITE.

Do you have any evidence for that? I knew that British migration to the US was higher than that of any other country, but I always thought German migration was almost on same level.
 
Do you have any evidence for that? I knew that British migration to the US was higher than that of any other country, but I always thought German migration was almost on same level.

It is a known trend that Americans of English origin are the most likely to identify as "American" alone, and those who are half-English half-something else or similarly mixed are more likely to identify with the more "unusual" ethnicity. The Wikipedia article cites Mary C. Waters as saying that "it may be speculated that mixed ethnicity or ancestry nominate a more recent and differentiated ethnic group." See also here... almost all of the places where the "American" ethnicity is dominant are historically dominated by British-origin people. Only Mormons and New Englanders seem to commonly accept the "English-American" label.

If we add "English" and "American" ethnicities from the 2000 census together, they beat "German" (15.9% vs. 15.2%). There are probably significant Scottish-Americans, Scots-Irish-Americans and Welsh-Americans in there as well... but if we balance that out with the effect of people picking the more "unusual" ethnicity (in which "German" almost always beats "English") then it seems that English has a shot at edging out German. It's close, though.
 
You know something that would be really interesting for me now?
Autosomal and Y-haplogroup distribution maps within North America or the New World in general!

[I know you just started creating your own maps recently, so if you don't have much to do right now... ;)]
 
It is a known trend that Americans of English origin are the most likely to identify as "American" alone, and those who are half-English half-something else or similarly mixed are more likely to identify with the more "unusual" ethnicity. The Wikipedia article cites Mary C. Waters as saying that "it may be speculated that mixed ethnicity or ancestry nominate a more recent and differentiated ethnic group." See also here... almost all of the places where the "American" ethnicity is dominant are historically dominated by British-origin people. Only Mormons and New Englanders seem to commonly accept the "English-American" label.

If we add "English" and "American" ethnicities from the 2000 census together, they beat "German" (15.9% vs. 15.2%). There are probably significant Scottish-Americans, Scots-Irish-Americans and Welsh-Americans in there as well... but if we balance that out with the effect of people picking the more "unusual" ethnicity (in which "German" almost always beats "English") then it seems that English has a shot at edging out German. It's close, though.

I agree with you up to a point here, but I have good news for you . It is not only 'Mormons and New Englanders' who accept the 'English-American' ethnic label. I have friends from Santa Monica, Virginia and Seattle who are proud of their English roots and accept the label and none of them are Mormons either. They are all rather sick of the negative way in which the English are portrayed as 'villains' in the American film industry too. Like myself, they love England and Englishness, and would never ever choose to be anything else in a billion years. Having ancestry from wonderful places like Yorkshire and East Anglia is quite 'exotic' enough for them...(y)
 
english is natural choice for single official language of EU, but it will never be the case... France and Germany will never agree to it....
 
It is only natural that as Europe (the E.U.) work closer together, they need to find one way of communicating. I both agree and disagree with your 'it has little or nothing to do with America' comment. On one hand I think it has a lot to do with the UK, being situated in Europe and having (nowadays) a much larger cultural influence than any other European country (in the sense of Music, literature, TV and Film). On the other hand, American music and movies have been ridiculously popular all over Europe ever since the 40s/50s. I agree with the comment that although American may be the most hated country, as much as people do hate them (presumably for their politics, ignorance and superiority complex) they still consume their Music, TV shows and Films.

I think it is good for Europe to adopt English as their lingua-franca. At the end of the day, most people can't be bothered to learn languages, so many people already know English so they decided to just go with it. I don't see (no matter how much they want it to) French or German somehow overtaking English's position
 
It is only natural that as Europe (the E.U.) work closer together, they need to find one way of communicating. I both agree and disagree with your 'it has little or nothing to do with America' comment. On one hand I think it has a lot to do with the UK, being situated in Europe and having (nowadays) a much larger cultural influence than any other European country (in the sense of Music, literature, TV and Film). On the other hand, American music and movies have been ridiculously popular all over Europe ever since the 40s/50s. I agree with the comment that although American may be the most hated country, as much as people do hate them (presumably for their politics, ignorance and superiority complex) they still consume their Music, TV shows and Films.

I think it is good for Europe to adopt English as their lingua-franca. At the end of the day, most people can't be bothered to learn languages, so many people already know English so they decided to just go with it. I don't see (no matter how much they want it to) French or German somehow overtaking English's position

I would plead for a more regional and smart approach. Give pupils the possibility to choose from a foreign language of their neighbouring countries as well. So that every European can understand at least three languages - his own, a foreign language of a neighbouring country and a common language like English/French/Russian/Spanish or whatever. For instance if you are living 100 km away from the border in the German federal state of lower Saxony you can't choose Dutch as a second foreign language; the same applies also for Eastern Germany and Polish I bet. In my opinion that is a missed opportunity for free movement of people in Europe.
 
Basically, yes. But it is still relatively unsteady. If to imagine a hypothetical situation when Great Britain leaves the European Union, it can be restoration of positions of the French language, and even greater spread.. In additives quickly growing language group in the neighbourhood in Africa as expected is french-speaking people.


So this is the deep dark truth behind this thread...Cultural Learnings of EU for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of France!
 
english is natural choice for single official language of EU, but it will never be the case... France and Germany will never agree to it....

The whole of EU knows this downright translates as a fatherly Germany (as ever) flopping out its big old man-titties and drenching the grandiose nationalistic sensibilities of a childlike France with sweetened appeasement over what clearly most folk in the EU would want. Sigh.

Spieglein, Spieglein, an der Wand / Wer ist die Schönste im ganzen Land? you are France you are!
 
Why are Europeans so eager to learn English ? It is certainly not because of American influence. If anything, feelings towards the USA have changed from very pro-US in the decades after WWII to lukewarm, mistrustful or even hostile in the last decade (

So why is it that English is now so popular and other major European languages (German, French, Spanish) are losing ground to it like never before ? I believe that the answer is globalisation, and the European Union certainly is part of it.

From my personal perspective, English becomes really the lingua franca, replacing so widely used Latin till 19th Century in Europe. It is not only globalization (it has existed also during Roman Empire :)), but practicality of communication for the sake of trade and interaction in Europe and the world. English became the first world language in the era of pre-globalization already - created by the Commonwealth. And, it was really only language to be chosen from, at the multiregional level (German lost after WWII, Spanish lost in 18th Century, French lost in 19th, Chinese age is only coming, Japanese is out of question, Arabic is one-region language only).

I have no negative feelings towards the USA - this fashion wave caused partially by Mr. Bush Younger, is not so nice from us toward our US cousins (I always say the American Caucasians are our Children). We can clearly remember the Marshall Plan and how vast financial resources and know-how the US has been given to Europe after the WWII. Secondly, the US with their military presence allowed to some European nations develop itself without spending too much for military during Cold War Era. We should never forget those facts. But my latest comment have nothing with lingua franca.

I think there is no need of having more competing lingua franca - the language of communication in Europe except the English. I fully agree with recent statements of German President, who encouraged to use English only widely.

And sorry for the mistakes in my written English :) hope you understand me :)
 
5 countries use English as their first language - UK, USA, Canada, Australia and NZ. The Commonwealth nations use English as second language - India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Uganda, Kenya, etc. English is alos spoken in South America, Iran, Egypt, etc. All Scandinavians speak English well.
 

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