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From: peter@statsci.com (Peter Schumacher)
Subject: Re: Single European Language
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Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 00:18:51 GMT
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Nigel Ashton <Nigel@ashton.demon.co.uk> writes:

>In article <DA43sn.Dtw@dcs.ed.ac.uk>
>           johnf@marble.epcc.ed.ac.uk "J Fisher" writes:

>> Edwin Hanks (ehanks@du.edu) wrote:
>> : There is something to be said in favor of the complexity of English.
>> 
>> In fact, English when spoken by Euro-functionaries mostly
>> doesn't have the flexibility and subtle shades of meaning
>> you describe.  On the contrary, there seems to be a distinct
>> variety of the language, a kind of Euro-English.

This reminds one of what happened to Latin in the Middle Ages when it
changed from an evolving vulgar language to an ossified and formally
acquired lingua franca used only for matters of the church, state, or
academia. It became stilted, lost subtleties and shades of meaning. (Some
writers achieved close to a mother-tongue expressiveness in it, but these
were in the minority.) Compare the descendants of Latin, all of whom no
doubt have a high degree of expressive power precisely because they were
spoken in the kitchen as well as at court.

>I used to be fairly active in politics at an EU
>level when I was international officer of the Young Liberals. I
>quickly picked up this Euro-English way of speaking as it was the
>most efficient way of making myself understood. The basic
>vocabulary is the same, but the grammer and syntax are subtly
>different, borrowing particularly from German. Interestingly, the
>only colleagues I could have a 'natural' English conversation with
>were the Dutch.

I do not find that German lacks nuance and subtlety at all. It does however
lend itself to formality and formulaism (?) far more readily than English,
but that is the choice of the speaker, not a restriction of the language.
There are kinds of irony and humour expressible with one or two syllables
in German (esp. southern German) which are unknown in English, and vice
versa. I have been speaking both since early childhood.


Peter Schumacher
peter@statsci.com
-- 

Peter Schumacher
peter@statsci.com
