Irish, Catalan, Basque, Galician

Easterner   Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:07 pm GMT
These languages have at least one thing in common: they have been recognised as official (Irish) or working languages (the other three) in the EU. See more at:
http://www.spotlight-online.de/doc/18251. (especially the first paragraph)

Do you think any minority languages will follow? If so, which ones? Will this actually give a boost to the use of Irish (the others are thriving rather well as I know), or is it a belated gesture? I'd be glad to know how speakers of some of these languages feel about all this.
Brennus   Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:31 am GMT
Easterner,

Re: Working languages in the Eu

All four of these languages are associated with strong or somewhat strong nationalist movements. Therefore, it seems that Albanian, Welsh Breton and Maltese are the next ones most likely to follow.

Languages of peoples with weak nationalist or autonomy movements like the Corsicans, Sardinians, Faroes Islanders and Lapps (Saami) are long shots but can't be ruled out entirely.
Easterner   Wed Jul 06, 2005 7:29 am GMT
Brennus,

Maltese is already one of the 21 official languages of the EU, although it is spoken by about 400 thousand people - the reason is that Malta is a member country of the EU since May 1, 2004. As for Albanian, speakers of it are likely to remain outside the EU for quite a long time, although Italy also has an Italo-Albanian minority. However, Welsh could qualify as a next runner, and I have heard that some are also considering Letzebuergesch (the spoken language used in Luxemburg) to be given working language status. The only thing that speaks against this is that almost every inhabitant of this country can speak about three foreign languages (except for babies and toddlers, that is...). For the language situation in Luxemburg, see more at:
http://www.luxembourg.co.uk/lingua.html

As the EU has quite a significant number of Russian speakers (up to about 1 million in the Baltic countries, I believe), I wonder if Russian will ever be given working language status in the EU... At present this seems to be a distant possibility.
Easterner   Wed Jul 06, 2005 7:34 am GMT
Sorry for the misspelling ... it should be Luxembourg.
Brennus   Thu Jul 07, 2005 6:57 am GMT
Easterner,

Where are all our multilinguists on this one?

Anyhow, this is how I see it:

Minority languages aside, either French or English will become the principal language of the EU in the future; the language in which most business and correspondence are conducted in. Which language becomes preeminent may depend upon whether Britain decides to stay in the EU or join the U.S. and Canada across the Atlantic . This could happen since the British and Irish are not continental Europeans and might have more in common with North Americans. Certainly in his novel "1984," George Orwell saw Australia, New Zealand, English speaking North America and the British Isles all merging into one superstate called "Oceana." Its rival was "Eurasia" stretching from Portugal to the Bering Straight.

Minority languages will be given only temporary official status in the EU as a courtesy. One by one over the next century or two, they will all yield to French or English.

The Russians are still important enough as a people and a world power that their language might have limited working status in the organization for a while. However, Russia's future may be more closely connected to Asia's than to Europe's and that would diminish its importance within the EU. Andrei Amalrik in his book "Will The Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?" rightfully points out that "historically the Russian Empire has always sought maximum isolation from the outside world."
Easterner   Thu Jul 07, 2005 8:00 am GMT
Brennus,

About a year ago there was a long thread going on here as to which language should be "official" in the EU. Some Europeans (including myself) expressed dissatisfaction over the idea that English should be the single official language of the EU - yet, judging from the facts, this is actually what is happening. The three most influential EU countries are France, Germany and Britain, but even officials from the former two are now increasingly using English as a working language.

However, I don't think that the situation will be quite the same on society level as well - if the EU will survive all its crises, and English will establish itself as a working language on the administrative levels, I guess the population will tend towards multilingualism - besides their own language, people may generally speak English, but they may also speak one of the major languages, like French or German. The dominance of English is not so apparent in the media as it may seem from the point of view of EU administration: there are channels like Arte, which broadcasts in French and German. And with the possibility of people working in a different EU country than their own, I think even the number of people who will speak the minor languages may increase. Thus, for example, a doctor or a plumber from Poland or Hungary working in Sweden (this is becoming rather common) will most probably have to learn at least a little Swedish - even if virtually everybody speaks English there - to establish a closer contact with their patients or clients. In this way, I think multilingualism will at least partly counterbalance the dominance of English.
Miriam   Sat Jul 09, 2005 2:28 pm GMT
Hi everybody! Very interesting forum! As an Irish speaker and doctor myself I definately agree with Easterner on his comment about people like foreign medics establishing closer contact with their clients. I prefer patients by the way. Clients is a rather cold description for someone who is sick.
Easterner   Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:33 pm GMT
Hi Miriam,

Thank you for your comment, it was really good to get a confirmation. On the other hand, if you take a closer look, you'll see the distinction between "patients OR clients" - the "client" part referred to plumbers, their "patients" being only the waterpipes or other parts of the water system, awaiting repair. :) The "Polish plumber" was, during the campaign in France, a symbol of all the bad things that the EU constitution would bring, and therefore one reason why the constitution was refused. On the other hand, the experience is that foreign workforce are quite well accepted in countries which have liberalised employment of foreign labour (as in Sweden, for example).
Easterner   Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:43 pm GMT
Speaking about foreign doctors in EU countries, this practice may raise some problems. As I heard, the Brits are already worried if foreign doctors' command of English is good enough to understand the patients' problem and provide adequate treatment. On top of that, officials are not allowed to check the English commend of EU ciztizens, only non-European ones, who usually have a better command of the language. Should they be given an intensive course in "medical English"?
Willy   Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:47 pm GMT
Catalan is spoken in north eastern Spain by approx. 10 milliion people. I am from catalonia and i dont speak catalan, i speak english. Although i´m just a minority because people here are brought up in both languages, official in this region. Politics has a lot to do with the proliferation of this language here, in school in college and all over the autonomous region. You find that newspapers and tv channels are coming up with more catalan each time to make people more conscience of the language. Also the government exerts pressure for this because many immigrants from southern Spain moved into this region in the 60´s and 70´s leaving catalan on a second landscape and large groups of immigrants were left scattered around the city suburbs, living with their traditions. Now to find a job without speaking it is difficult.
Emmett   Sun Jul 31, 2005 3:25 pm GMT
Please don't confuse official status with an indication of the strength of the language and the number of people which speak it. For example Catalan has 11 million speakers, across Spain, France and the Balaric islands, a body of speakers that well exceedes the number of people that speak Danish never mind those that speak Estonian (never mind those that speak Maltese...etc.).

Under COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 920/2005 of 13 June 2005 amending Regulation No 1 of 15 April 1958 determining the language to be used by the European Economic Community and Regulation No 1 of 15 April 1958 determining the language to be used by the European Atomic Energy Community and introducing temporary derogation measures from those Regulations Irish became the 21st Official language of the EU.

If the language is the first official language of a member state the government of that state is allowed to (and is expected to) seek full official status for their language.

I am not a fluent Irish speaker but I do have a measure of profeciency in the language and I hope in the future to improve on that in conjunction with my French, German, Estonian, Spanish, and Swedish. You can tell I am a language freak.
Easterner   Mon Aug 01, 2005 8:24 am GMT
Emmett: >>You can tell I am a language freak.<<

Cute. That makes two uf us, I guess. :)
Sander   Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:38 am GMT
Make that 3 ;)
w000t?   Mon Aug 01, 2005 7:23 pm GMT
They dont speak English in most of Ireland?? :(?
Sander   Mon Aug 01, 2005 7:43 pm GMT
=>They dont speak English in most of Ireland?? <=

This is new for me too.