Category: Assignment 6

It is known that the European Union is an entity and a project very unique nowadays and in history. Its unique features depends mostly by its unprecedented multicultural essence and the challenges that this entails.   At the core of what characterizes cultures and identities, there is the language or languages that are inherited and spoken. It comes with no surprise that in the matter of European Union language policy, the debate is intense ongoing. Multilingualism is a value of the European Union. In order to keep it alive in and overwhelming globalizing world there is the need for constant and proactive policies. I’m going to discuss the language policy of the EU in its working institutions and on  a the broader range as well.

Critics and room for improvements will always be there, nevertheless the EU language policy has taken many steps and experimented many programs during the past years as it is possible to read in the LETPP Consortium (2011). The main objective of the policies is to raise awareness of the value and opportunities of the EU’s linguistic diversity an encourage the removal of barriers to intercultural exchange. It was in the 1980s that there was a raise in the demand to bring this principles more into practice. As an example the popular Erasmus project has been  created, among others. A lot of focus has been put in the Education policy as a platform for Language policy. In fact the successful Erasmus program permits students to integrate part of their academic formation with universities from other countries. The project surely enhanced for European student the awareness of the multicultural landscape in Europe in a very attractive way, by also making them more aware of their differences and their identities.  As a personal experience, I’ve only started to become aware of how much Italian I was from the moment I started to live abroad. Living abroad changed me but I haven’t lose my Italian identity, despite the fact that I speak English everyday and only sometimes Italian. Despite the fact that I appreciate the possibility of English as a medium of instruction, I wouldn’t want English to became to invasive in the future.

Due to globalization  and the Internet, English established itself as a lingua franca in the world. This started to be a reality also for the EU and its institutions, especially after the consecutive rounds of enlargements. In fact, the more representatives with different languages in the EU institutions, the more comes the need for the usage of a language that is universally comprehensible.  Despite the fact that the EU has 24 official languages, only few of them are actually used as working languages. The most used are English French and German. But English is getting the predominance constantly more. This created an ongoing debate between opposing views and perceptions, for instance among the Dutch Theo von Els’ and the German Ulrich Ammon. The latter in facts contests to the former the proposal for English as the only official working language of the EU. Ammon explains how the presence of German as a working language in EU is important for the status of the language itself. Other criticism for the “English-only”Europe, come from Phillipson that proposes different best and worst case scenarios. One of the worst he proposes, is the policy of laissez faire towards the issue, which would lead to the English triumph eventually. On the other hand, despite being a strong supporter of multilingualism, he advocates the use of Esperanto as the pivotal language of the European Union. This seems like a strong and unusual position and more ideological than practical.  in favor of the argument, the adoption of Esperanto could strengthen the political and ideological view of the European Union, and solve disputes on the unfairness for a  preferred language in the EU. On the other hand Esperanto has not many speakers in the world (but indeed that could change if such policies were introduced).  But more importantly the scenario of the imposition of an artificial language over the world predominant English seems an utopia.

Using English as a lingua franca and as the mainly working language for the EU,doesn’t seem to me as problematic and unfair. Discussions and debates (assuming that these are made without interpreters)  could still be made on equal level as long as more people in the future generations will know English and possibly at higher proficiency. But knowing another language other than English is actually the advantage and added value that people could appreciate. Whether for bilateral talks or negotiations or for interest into another culture. What really matters the most, is that the adoption of English as a lingua franca or working language would cause the gradual abandon or disinterest for the other languages. And this is where the EU language policy should increase its efficacy.  In this sense, the Romanian commissioner responsible for Multilingualism, Leonard Orban, has put great emphasis in one of his speech.

 Although appreciating what has been done so far, he affirmed how languages should be an integral part of lifelong learning, and how Europe should envisage a space for European political dialogue through multilingual communication with the citizens. Europe should keep of being proud of its multicultural and multilingual nature,  and being an example for the rest of the world.  No matter the number of people by whom a language is spoken or its political influence, its survival is important  for the inheritance and the diversity that characterizes our world.