Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 2nd May 2008 20:52 UTC, submitted by irbis
One of the biggest problems facing the European Union today is the fact that within its borders, 23 languages are spoken. This means that all the important documents have to be translated by a whole army of translators, which costs the taxpayer more than 1 billion Euros a year - and companies trading within the EU spend millions more. The EU-funded TC-STAR project aims to tackle this issue with technology: a system that eats speech in one language, and outputs that same speech in another.
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Member since:
2008-05-03
I'm not proposing that English be made the official language f the EU, I'm opposing the idea that french or german are better candidate for it or more widely spoken and understood.
However I think english is the least nationalistic language. It is not the official language of the UK, it is just the language everybody happens to speak in the UK. There are many more native speakers of english outwith the UK than within. Unlike French particularly, English is a free language, divorced from the state. There's no Academy of English that we have to live under the tyranny of, no "French is the language of the Republic." in the constitution. English is defined far more by those who speak it beyond the shore of the UK, in a global free for all.
English is free, and it makes free those that speak it. It's the open source language, unlike french and german. If we are to choose a language for the EU, it should be English, the language that is most widely spoken, the language that belongs to the people and not to any state or nation.