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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: Re: Languages in the EC
Message-ID: <elnaD3KB2I.6uv@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <3h3ci5$qc8@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 04:56:41 GMT
Lines: 24

coby@euler.Berkeley.EDU (Coby (Jacob) Lubliner) writes in a recent posting (reference <3h3ci5$qc8@agate.berkeley.edu>):
>Of the fifteen member states of the EU, only two have primary
>languages that are neither Germanic nor Romance (and one of them, 
>Finland, has a Germanic second language).  Of the remaining thirteen,
>seven have Germanic, four Romance, and two (Belgium and Luxemburg) both.
>
>English has the distinction of being the Germanic language with the
>largest proportion of Romance elements.  On that basis alone it
>would qualify as the ideal superlanguage for the EU.
>
This is a clever argument, but it ignores the obvious political problems
attached to any national language. Other nations will not allow any nation
(or tribe, religion, etc) to have this kind of built-in advantage. For 
top-level political debate to occur only in a language which is native to
some, but secondary to others, cannot be acceptable.

Esperanto has the distinction of being the Romance language with the 
largest proportion of Germanic elements. It is also politically neutral 
and planned to be easy to learn. On these bases together it qualifies as
the ideal international language for the EU and elsewhere.

Miko.


