Saturday 22 December 2012
The EU Proposes A Single Language For Europe
This week my main topic has been the EU so I thought I'd end the week on a cheerier note.
A few of you may have seen this proposal already. The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”. In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”.. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the second year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with an “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, public akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer people will be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords containing “ou” and after ze fifz yer ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like ze vunted in ze forst plas.
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Whether its in Euro-babble or whatever language you speak, may I take this opportunity to wish you all - - -
Merry Christmas
Nollaig Chridheil
Felix dies Nativitatis
Frohe Weihnachten
Vrolijk Kerstfeest
Joyeux Noël
Buon Natale
Feliz Navidad
Kala Christougenna
God Jul
Wesolych Świat
Miilaad Majiid
sheng dan kuai le
Thank you JRB and may I wish you and yours similar greetings.
Sorry to be an English humbug but that is a very very very old one Subrosa! On a serious note. I wonder if the EU will ever propose a common language for Europe? English is the obvious choice. See the fur fly then!
Merry Christmas.
Selamat Hari Natal, as they say in Lochee.
- Aangirfan
Aye it is old but I thought still funny IE. :) Was kind of busy baking a cake, cleaning and various other things today so didn't have time to give to blogging.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if they suggested it though. They consider themselves invincible.
I thought it was more like "Whit? Merry Christmas? Auch awa wi ye. Fowk jist want yer muney an the kirk tae'.
Felicitations to you and yours Aangirfan.
Very amusing SR. The peoples of Europe have chosen a common language and it is indeed English. Those in eastern Europe dumped compulsory Russian in favour of English at the earliest opportunity while eleswhere in Europe Englsh has overtaken French or German as the most taught language and in some European companies (notably Siemens) English is the official company language. My own city benefits from several schools for European pupils polishing up their English speaking skills.
It is my view that in Britain we should abandon teaching European languages and instead concentrate on Chinese, Arabic and Portuguese (for Brazil).
I too have always thought the likes of Spanish should be taught more banned. I believe nearly half the world speaks a version of it.
Newspeak doubleplusgood for EU.
Erm... Problem. The Eglish which you speak of is not English. It is 'New-Speak English', wherein words like 'help' mean 'force', and so on.
An excellent point bolton. Of course there are also the 'quiet' changes to definitions.
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