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Should English stay the lingua franca of Europe? (fedia.io)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
151 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

There were many lingua francas of which French was supposedly the first global lingua franca. That changed and it became English (from what I understand). We will probably see another language become the lingua franca, so my question is: should it be English? Are there better candidates out there? Why / why not?

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

It depends on what Europe wants to be. The language is in some ways connected to the culture. Would Europe get a more Mediterranean savoir vivre if everybody spoke Spanish or French? I think so.

An ambitious and interesting option for Europe could be Arabic as the lingua franca. If Europe commits, other countries like Iran or India could also be interested in joining. That could create a huge area with a single language as long as it doesn't splinter into dialects like the current Arabic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago

An ambitious and interesting option for Europe could be Arabic as the lingua franca.

There's Maltese, which is an official EU language, albeit probably not the most useful for interchange with the Arab world as a whole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_language

Maltese (Maltese: Malti, also L-Ilsien Malti or Lingwa Maltija) is a Semitic language derived from late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance superstrata. The only official Semitic and Afroasiatic language of the European Union and the only Semitic language to use the Latin alphabet, and the only Afroasiatic language other than Somali to use a Latin script, it is spoken by the Maltese people and is the national language of Malta.

The original Arabic base comprises around one-third of the Maltese vocabulary, especially words that denote basic ideas and the function words, but about half of the vocabulary is derived from standard Italian and Sicilian; and English words make up between 6% and 20% of the vocabulary. A 2016 study shows that, in terms of basic everyday language, speakers of Maltese are able to understand less than a third of what is said to them in Tunisian Arabic and Libyan Arabic, which are Maghrebi Arabic dialects related to Siculo-Arabic, whereas speakers of Tunisian Arabic and Libyan Arabic are able to understand about 40% of what is said to them in Maltese. This reported level of asymmetric intelligibility is considerably lower than the mutual intelligibility found between mainstream varieties of Arabic.

Maltese has always been written in the Latin script, the earliest surviving example dating from the late Middle Ages. It is the only standardised Semitic language written exclusively in the Latin script.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This suggestion is at least original :p

But I think we should make our new lingua franca a generous gesture to the world: we should find some language only still spoken by one old woman in some remote village, give her a list of words to translate and have that be the basis for our new federal European conlingua franca!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Nobody in Europe wants Iran or India to join.

Also, most Iranians apeak Persian, not Arabic.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The point of speaking Arabic would be to have the same language as North Africa and Arabia. And once Europe speaks Arabic, neighboring countries like Turkye, Iran or Pakistan and India could see the benefit in joining.

This doesn't mean that those countries become part of the EU. It would just create a huge zone with a single language which has its own advantages.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What exactly is the point? Most people in Europe speak at least a little English, a ton of people in India speak English, Arabic is completely alien to Europe. There is no advantage to Arabic over English.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The point is having a common language and thus economic and cultural advantages. English is a secondary language for most people. In the US, it's probably replaced with Spanish.

With Arabic, you have many more primary language speakers. Thanks to immigration, the transition to Arabic can be made easy. Then it's possible to sell products in one packaging from Portugal to India.

I am not arguing that this should happen. It's just an opportunity that is not obvious because Arabic is not a traditional European language. Though I would assume that there are now more Arabic than Basque speakers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Again, English would make so much more sense as a common language than Arabic. There are more English speakers in Egypt alone than there are Arabic speakers in the whole EU.