EU Adopts Official Language?

[Viking]

Gah. Yes it was. (My Norwegian is *very* rusty.)

It's just that it appeared to come out of thin air. Norway isn't even a member of the EU.

If it can't be Polish why not German :) More citizens of EU uses German as national language.

But how many actually speak it?

[Kadagar_AV]

They more shout it imho... or spit it out...

[KrooK]

We should count only citizens of European Union or people living into European Union not people uses language at all. GB has about 60.000.000 citizens, Germany 80.000 + few millions into Austria.
German language has much more native speakers. English on the other hand is being used as lingua franca all over the world.

[KukriKhan]

It's a little ironic to use lingua franca in reference to english.

Originally lingua Franca (or Sabir) referred to a mixed language composed mostly of Italian with a broad vocabulary drawn from Persian, French, Greek and Arabic. Lingua Franca literally means "Frankish language". This originated from the Arabic custom of referring to all Europeans as Franks. This mixed language was used for communication throughout the medieval and early modern Middle East[citation needed] as a diplomatic language; the generic description lingua franca has since become common for any language used by speakers of different languages to communicate with one another. Some samples of Sabir have been preserved in Molière's comedy, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

If the wiki article is correct (and I think it is), then your assertion that English, particularly American English which absorbs millions of words from other languages, is correct, too. Whether continetal europe adopts Am-Eng, with its ability to accomodate all other languages, is a political question though, that doesn't look good, because of folks not wanting to 'give up' their native tongue, or in their minds 'submit' to American incursions on their culture.

I should get up to speed on Spanish and Chinese. Then I could communicate with about 75-80% of humanity. But I'm getting kinda old, and it gets harder to teach this old dog new tricks with each passing day.

[TevashSzat]

I should get up to speed on Spanish and Chinese. Then I could communicate with about 75-80% of humanity. But I'm getting kinda old, and it gets harder to teach this old dog new tricks with each passing day.

Well, if you know English, Spanish is (fairly) easy to learn. Basically, most people who had learned a few years of high school Spanish should be able to read most Spanish articles and get the gist of it without much problem. Communicating (ie speaking/writing), however, is another story.

As for Chinese.....well its really hard for anyone who hasn't learned an "Oriental" language already (something like Korean/Japanese) since it really has no resemblance towards Western languages (like the prominent use of phonic spellings as well as the written one)

[Jolt]

It's a little ironic to use lingua franca in reference to english.

Originally lingua Franca (or Sabir) referred to a mixed language composed mostly of Italian with a broad vocabulary drawn from Persian, French, Greek and Arabic. Lingua Franca literally means "Frankish language". This originated from the Arabic custom of referring to all Europeans as Franks. This mixed language was used for communication throughout the medieval and early modern Middle East[citation needed] as a diplomatic language; the generic description lingua franca has since become common for any language used by speakers of different languages to communicate with one another. Some samples of Sabir have been preserved in Molière's comedy, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

If the wiki article is correct (and I think it is), then your assertion that English, particularly American English which absorbs millions of words from other languages, is correct, too. Whether continetal europe adopts Am-Eng, with its ability to accomodate all other languages, is a political question though, that doesn't look good, because of folks not wanting to 'give up' their native tongue, or in their minds 'submit' to American incursions on their culture.

I should get up to speed on Spanish and Chinese. Then I could communicate with about 75-80% of humanity. But I'm getting kinda old, and it gets harder to teach this old dog new tricks with each passing day.

Curiously, the muslims called Catholic Europe a very wierd name (Translated into english that is). We already know about: Turkmenistan, where Turkmen live; Kazakhistan, where Kazaks live, Uzbekistan, and so on. "Stan" means "home of" (I think) in Persian, so using the "franca" cue, muslims called our Catholic Europe "Frangistan". Where Franks live. :P That makes us all "Frangistani" in Iranian's eyes.

Well, if you know English, Spanish is (fairly) easy to learn.

Ugh, English and Spanish have nothing in common, believe me. I would bet it's probably easier for an English to learn German or Norwegian than Spanish.

[Kadagar_AV]

Jolt, you are indeed right...

Spanish is based on latin, english, norwegian, german and so on is based on germanic.

Sure, we all share an indo-european ground... but then we have divided into different groups...