European language?
Well, I believe that the main problem lies in the practical side.
Who to choose for which group? Spanish might be big in the world but it's virtually nothing in Europe.Same for English...
French and German would be logical representatives, but then you pick one of the grammatically hardest from the Romance and also one of the hardest from the Germanic group.Then which Slavic language to choose? Russian would be the largest, but Russia isn't very Europe focussed...
Picking a minority language would be noble , and neutral which seems to be very important for the bigger countries/languages.
The plan deals with a 'solution' for the -future- problem that Europe needs to compete with 2 economical MONOLINGUAL superpowers; the USA and China... without resorting to a constructed language...
"French and German would be logical representatives"
Why? There are more native English speakers in Europe than French speakers.
Don´t think that there are more native English speakers in Europe than French speakers. English is speaken in the UK, Ireland and also Malta maybe and French in France, half Belgium and parts of Switzerland.
France and UK have roughly the same populations so I don´t think there are more English native speakers in Europe.
According to a Eurobarometer study the official languages of the Union are spoken as mother tongues by the following percentages of the population of the European Union:
Deutsch 24%
English 17%
Français 16%
Italiano 16%
Español 11%
Nederlands 6%
Elinika 3%
Português 3%
Svenska 2%
Dansk 1%
Suomi 1%
Deutsch 24%
English 17%
Français 16%
Italiano 16%
Español 11%
Nederlands 6%
Elinika 3%
Português 3%
Svenska 2%
Dansk 1%
Suomi 1%
There can't be as many Italian speakers as French speakers. Where did you get those figures from?
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/lang/languages/index_en.html
I found your source Adam, only it says the number of native English speakers is 16%, not 17%. Still, how can there be as many native Italian speakers as French speakers when there are 58,462,375 Italians (French: 63,056,200) and when French is also spoken natively in the Wallon part of Belgium?
=>"French and German would be logical representatives"
Why? There are more native English speakers in Europe than French speakers. <=
It's logical because German outnumbers English by far in Europe and English isn't a Romance language.
For that matter people who speak a Germanic language (Except English speakers) German is much easier to relate to.
- France (including overseas departments and territories) 63,056,200 + about 40% of Belgium 4,178,340 = 67,234,540. (Switzerland is not a member of the EU).
- UK 60,654,787 + Ireland 4,015,676 = 64,670,463.
Even with Cyprus (780,133) and Malta (398,534) included (which would be inacurate given that they don't all speak English) English has not as many native speakers as French.
(*) The figure of 60,654,787 inhabitants in the UK includes Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, Saint Helena, the Falkland Islands, the Pitcairn Islands and the Isle of Man.
Those are not all situated in Europe
<Those are not all situated in Europe>
They are part of the EU thus their inhabitants count as native English speakers in the European Union.
No they don't.If the Falklands (of the coast of Argentina) are part of the EU I'll eat my legs.
Maybe it´s time to eat up one of your legs Sander. :)
"France (including overseas departments and territories) 63,056,200 + about 40% of Belgium 4,178,340 = 67,234,540. (Switzerland is not a member of the EU).
- UK 60,654,787 + Ireland 4,015,676 = 64,670,463."
It would help if you didn't count overseas territories.
Britain has a larger population than France.