In the recent post ‘European agents are actually misusing English’ I discussed the role of the English within the European Institutions and the possibility that this could become the EU’s official language*. We received some interesting feedback on the article from Jeremy Gardner, the author of an EU report on the misuse of English in the European Institutions. Below he gives his opinion on the changing role of English and other European languages within the European Institutions:

“Joachim Gauck, the German President gave a speech on 22 February 2013, in which, among other things, he called for the acceptance of English as the European Union’s lingua franca. This has lead to a certain amount of more or less informed debate, including a recent article in the Guardian asking whether English should be the official language of the EU.
At the time of writing, the EU currently has 23 official languages and a large but probably indefinable number of other languages that, for one historical or political reason or another, are not classified as official, despite the fact that some have more speakers than many of the official languages. Catalan, for example, has no ‘official language’ status in the EU, despite having around nine million speakers, whereas Slovenian does have official status with only 2.5 million. Similarly the (non-official) Luxembourg national language has nearly twice as many speakers as (official) Irish. There is little or no likelihood of these being reduced to one ‘official’ language in the foreseeable or even distant future.
Within the European institutions themselves, the situation is actually not much simpler. Although French, German and English have traditionally enjoyed a higher procedural status, particularly at the Commission, which is the largest institution, the other languages are not excluded completely, so, at the European Parliament, for example, translation of working documents is provided for all official languages as required.
As for the three main languages, the balance between them has changed radically over the last twenty years. French, which used to be the dominant language in most contexts has retreated dramatically, except perhaps at the Court of Justice, where it has an official monopoly, English has taken over the spaces vacated by its traditional rival and German, quite frankly, is on life support.
The reasons for this are fairly simple. German never really had a fighting chance, despite having over 90 million speakers spread out over 11 of the 27 EU member countries. It is perceived as an almost impossibly difficult language and the German authorities have never made a concerted attempt to prop it up in this connection. French, on the other hand, has always enjoyed strong support from the French government and people, who, unlike the Germans, feel very strongly about this issue. It also benefits from the fact that all the main European institutions are located in largely or partly French speaking towns (Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg), meaning both that there have traditionally been a large number of locally recruited French speaking employees and that some knowledge of the language is important for the daily lives of EU staff and their families.
English, on the other hand, has a two-fold role in Europe. Aside from being one of the larger languages in terms of native speakers, it is also almost universally the second language of choice throughout the continent due to its status as a world language, meaning that newly recruited officials – including, these days, most French speakers – already come to Brussels or Luxembourg with a working knowledge of the language and only learn French and/or German afterwards, if at all.
All of this means that, if we decided to save money by reducing the number of languages employed in the EU’s everyday work, there would currently only one be language that could work – English – and this would be true even if the United Kingdom did decide to go its own way. Any of the other suggestions put forward (French, German, Esperanto, Latin etc) would flounder on demographics. Everything would grind to a halt because there are simply not enough people who speak – or could be made to speak – these languages sufficiently well to keep the machinery running (this is already a problem with English).
The question is: how much money would it actually save? Communications with member countries and the general public would still have to be conducted in a language that the other party understands, MEPs would still have to be able to speak in their own languages and legislation would still have to be translated. Although there may be scope for having this latter task being performed in the countries themselves, this is not as simple as it sounds: which version would be correct – the French one or the Belgian, the German or the Austrian?
In the end, what it may all boil down to is downgrading French to the status of the other languages, thus avoiding the translation of a certain amount of administrative documentation. One wonders if the comparatively insignificant savings that would be obtained by this somewhat churlish proposal would be worth the political damage that would ensue.”

*As you will read in Mr Gardner’s comment, this was inaccurate, as English is already one of the EU’s 23 official languages.

In February of this year the President of Germany, Joachim Gauck, made the rather controversial suggestion that English should be made the official language of the European Union. His remark was not made without motive, as it was part of his appeal to Great Britain to remain in the European Union. The statement was met with anger from many non-anglophone EU citizens, and certainly gave cause for concern to those countries that are already fighting the ever increasing impact of English on their national languages.

Those who are in favour of Gauck’s proposal have argued that English is already, for the most part, the principal language of the EU, where it is used as a popular common language for communication between natives of other European countries. However, native English speakers working at the institutions might be quick to argue that this is not the case; whilst the use of English is becoming more and more widespread in the European institutions, the language used is no longer English, but rather a kind of ‘Euro-English’.

A report written by Jeremy Gardner, a senior translator at the European court of Auditors has revealed the extent to which the English used in the institutions has been affected by its use among non-native speakers. The short piece entitled ‘A brief list of misused English terminology in EU publications’ lists a number of wrongly used English words, some of which are used in such a way that a sentence could have completely different meaning for a native English speaker than the intended message. Gardner compiled this list by taking information from ‘statements of preliminary findings’ and draft reports from the Court of Auditors. Other words were supplied by his English-speaking colleagues. The terms were then checked against dictionaries, native speakers in the UK, and the British National Corpus, which is a 100 million word collection of samples of written and spoken English from a wide range of sources, intended to represent a broad cross-section of current British English.

Some employees have argued that whilst English used in the European Institutions is not always correct, it is easily understood internally, as these unofficial definitions are used with such frequency. However, Gardner was keen to point out that European documentation is often intended for public use, this means that  English used within the EU should be neutral and intelligible for the average lay person, not only well versed ‘eurocrats’.

Below are a few examples of words which are frequently misused:

 Actual

Explanation: ‘Actual’ is sometimes used to refer to something that is happening now. However, in English it means ‘real’ or ‘existing’.

Example: ‘The Commission’s actual policy is to employ contract staff.’

Alternatives: current, present.

 Project

Explanation: We sometimes find ‘project (of)’ used with the meaning of ‘draft’. It is more common in working documents than in published reports, but some cases filter through into the Official Journal.

Example: ‘A number of technical and editorial amendments were also introduced to define the scope of some provisions, to make the wording of the Directive more explicit and more consistent with the wording of the project of Regulation on placing on the market88.’

Alternative: draft.

Sickness insurance

Explanation: As the correct term is health insurance, presumably one would take out ‘sickness insurance’ if one wanted to stay in bad health. I am afraid we are stuck with the paradoxical ‘joint sickness insurance scheme’, but the term should be avoided in other contexts.

Example: ‘A national authority may refuse authorisation to receive treatment in another

Member State only if treatment which is the same or equally effective for the patient can

Click the link to read the report in full.

The recent controversy surrounding the Venezuelan presidential elections has been well documented in the international press. Hugo Chavez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, won the national election by a margin of just 1.6%, or approximately 275,000 votes. Maduro now has many obstacles to overcome as president- these include reducing the country’s soaring inflation rate (currently at more than 22%) and decreasing the country’s appalling levels of violent crime, all the while attempting to continue Chavez’s legacy. These challenges are made all the more difficult when taking into account the diversity of the Venezuelan population. Whilst Chavez championed the poor who live in the country’s slums, he alienated the middle class, leaving the newly elected president with the task of winning them over. The Venezuelan population is not only diverse as regards social class but also ethnicity- the country is home to around 500,000 indigenous people, and many non-indigenous Venezuelans have Italian, French or German heritage. This diversity is reflected in the variety of languages spoken in the country. Like the majority of Latin American countries, the constitutional language of Venezuela is Spanish, however, around 40 other languages are also spoken in the country. More than 30 of these are indigenous minority languages such as Wayuu, Warao and Pemón. Aside from the variety of different languages spoken, there are also a number of different regional Spanish dialects spoken in the country. The following are some of the major Venezuelan dialects:

The Caracas dialect

This dialect is spoken in the capital and is considered to be the standard Spanish of Venezuela, it is also spoken in other areas of the country such as Valencia.

The Zulian dialect

This is spoken in the north-west of the country and is also called maracucho or marabino, this dialect uses voseo.

The Lara dialect

This dialect also uses voseo, but combines this with Old Spanish verbal declensions -ades, -edes, -odes gave -ais, -eis, and -ois (“vos cantáis”, “vos coméis”, “vos sois”).

The Andean dialect

This is spoken in particular in the state of Táchira, near the Colombian border. It is characterized by a non-aspirated pronunciation of ‘s’ and use of Usted instead of tú, even within informal contexts.

The Margaritan dialect

This is spoken on Isla de Margarita and in the north-east of mainland Venezuela. The Margaritan dialect uses a strong ‘r’ instead of ‘l’ in most words.

Thanks to Venezuela’s cultural heritage and linguistic diversity some frequently used words show an interesting mixture of standard Spanish and ‘borrowed’ words from other languages. Here are a few examples:

Chévere = An exclamation of approval, E.g. ‘Cool!’ (derived from Yoruban (West Africa) ‘ché egberi’).

Musiú = Foreigner. A white native from non-hispanic countries (believed to come from the French ‘Monsieur’).

Balurdo(a) = adj. Meaning ‘flashy’ (from the French ‘balourd’).

Contorno = n. A side dish (From the Italian ‘contorno’).

Coroto(s) = n. Stuff, belongings (After 16th century French artist Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot).

Guachimán = n. A guard (From the English ‘watchman’).

Paisano = n. Abbreviated as Paisa, this word usually refers to a native of Colombia (From the Italian “Paesano”).

In a country with such linguistic and cultural diversity, Maduro certainly has a difficult task ahead of him, so all that is left is to wish him ¡buena suerte!

The European Parliament has announced that as many as 120 European languages are now officially endangered, with Finland being home to seven of these. This announcement comes following a meeting on 20 March between the European Parliament’s culture committee and experts on the subject. French MEP Francois Alfonsi voiced his concern over the decline of these languages saying that “Without concrete support at European, national and local level, we will see a further decline in linguistic diversity over the next decades. This will leave all of us culturally, socially and economically impoverished.” The importance of stepping in to preserve minority languages has also been recognised by UNESCO, which argues that that their disappearance “is neither inevitable nor irreversible”. Its Endangered Languages Programme aims to demonstrate its belief that “well-planned and implemented language policies can bolster the ongoing efforts of speaker communities to maintain or revitalise their mother tongues and pass them on to younger generations”.

This announcement is a reminder of just how important it is to protect and promote minority languages, and one small British publishing company is trying its best to do so. Diglot books produces bilingual children’s books in many languages, one of which is Cornwall’s endangered language of Kernowek, or Kernewek. Around 500 people cited Cornish as their main language in the 2011 census, which places the language as “endangered” on the Catalogue of Endangered Languages, a global collaborative project to preserve languages. Diglot was told by online retailer Amazon that its bilingual Cornish/English children’s book “Matthew and the Wellington Boots (Matthew ha’n Eskisyow Glaw in Cornish)” would not be made available for use on kindles because it was in a language that is not currently supported by the platform, but the publisher decided to fight back. Director Alison O’Dornan said that it appealed “on the basis that our title was actually bilingual and that the Cornish translation had been checked by an examiner for the Cornish Language Board, the alphabet was the same as English so there were no extra characters needed”. When their appeal failed she turned to social media for support, and eventually won. Matthew and the Wellington Boots is now for sale as an e-book via Amazon and Apple – where it has already received two five-star reviews, one in Cornish. O’Dornan underlined the important role of the younger generations in the preservation of minority languages, “The key to truly reviving the language is clearly with the younger generation and bilingual books are a fantastic way to achieve this as they are easily accessible to both parents and children alike”.

Consider some of the world’s most important literary works: Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Homer’s Odyssey, Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Now consider some rather less high-brow contemporary novels: Harry Potter, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, even Fifty Shades of Grey. All of these works have achieved international acclaim on some level, none of which would have been possible without the aid of the humble translator. Sadly, due praise is not often given to the secondary authors behind these success stories- I for one would be pushed to name a famous literary translator. Of course there are those writers who have translated their own works, such as Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita), but even in these cases it is not usually their translation skills that are celebrated. Surely the person who has painstakingly analysed the structure of every paragraph, the syntax of every sentence and the nuances of every word of a novel should be given some acknowledgment for making all of this information accessible to a new audience.

This thought struck me whilst reading Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s latest novel “The Prisoner of Heaven” (ES , El Prisionero del Cielo), in English; I have read other books in the Shadow of The Wind series and each time marvelled at the quality of the seamless English translation. Zafón’s writing is impressive- the interwoven plotlines and intriguing characters make for an addictive read, and the global success that he has experienced is testament to this. However, this international success could not have been reached without the work of the equally skilled translators who have produced the foreign language editions of these novels. Yet despite the high calibre of her English translation of Zafón’s novels, I had never heard of Lucia Graves.

Another internationally bestselling series is the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson, his novels have also been made accessible to a global audience through translation. In this case the English translator did become well known in some literary circles, but for all the wrong reasons. Many criticised the translation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which was completed by the American translator Steven T. Murray under the pseudonym “Reg Keeland”. Why would a translator need a pseudonym, I hear you ask? His carefully constructed American English translation was edited for the British English market, but he did not get the chance to review the final edit. He was so disappointed upon finally reading it that he was left with no choice but to request that his real name be withheld from the final translation, so as not to damage his reputation. He made his anger at this new edition clear, commenting that “This…is no longer the work of the author, who is sadly no longer with us to defend his work! They didn’t even keep his original title, which he used for a very good reason: Men [sic] Who Hate Women.”Even with the criticism that “Keeland” received, the fact that he has made Larsson’s novels available to a wider audience, and therefore contributed to the series’ success, is undeniable.  

Imagine the pressure of having to translate a nationally celebrated work for a global audience; get it right and the author could become a worldwide success story, get it wrong and the translator may well be in the firing line.