It has been suggested that Euro-English be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) English as a lingua franca for Europe, also known by the abbreviation ELFE, is a concept promoted by some linguistics experts, which aims to standardize the use of the English language in the European Union. English, in some form or another, is already widely used and understood by people in EU countries, despite it only being spoken natively by a small percentage of those people. However, regional differences in English, as well as peculiarities in spelling, vocabulary and grammar shared with few other European languages, have made learning it more difficult for many Europeans; ELFE does not only aim at making English easier to learn (this is the main objective of other projects like for example "Simple English"): ELFE indicates the development of high level languages for a global society. English is evolving into a more international language - for example by emphazising those elements of English which it shares with other European languages. ELFE integrates much international expert terminology and uses mostly phrases that are self-explaining. It avoids English expressions that frequently create misundertanding in communication between people from different parts of Europe. ELFE does not necessarily indicate standardisation of English, it also could describe a style that is more suitable for use of English as a European lingua franca. Image File history File links Please see the file description page for further information. ...
Euro-English (also Euroenglish or Euro-Englisch) terms are English translations of European concepts that are not native to English-speaking countries. ...
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and someone who engages in this study is called a linguist. ...
The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
List of English words with diacritics Greek orthography Monotonic orthography Polytonic orthography Latin spelling and pronunciation Russian orthography Grapheme Official script Links Teaching spelling Category: ...
A vocabulary is a set of words known to a person or other entity, or that are part of a specific language. ...
Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language. ...
Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ...
The motivation for ELFE
The member states of the European Union use a wide variety of languages (there are currently 20 official EU languages, with Irish set to become official on 1 January 2007), and although the EU attempts to respect all of them by providing translation services, this generally consumes large amounts of time and money, and the benefits of a lingua franca - a common language that can be used by everyone to communicate with everyone else - are obvious. January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ...
2007 (MMVII) will be a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Despite controversy, English has already assumed the position of a European lingua franca to some extent. According to a Eurobarometer survey in 2001, 47% of EU citizens spoke English well enough to hold a casual conversation, a higher proportion than any other language in Europe. Note, though, that this survey did not include the peoples of the ten Eastern and Southern European countries that joined the union in 2004. English is also the most commonly taught second language to children in Europe, largely because of the enormous impact of the United States in politics, economics and culture around the world. Eurobarometer is a survey performed by Public Opinion Analysis sector of the European Commission since 1973. ...
2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
There are, however, problems with the idea of Europe simply adopting an already existing form of English (such as British English or American English) for use as its lingua franca, some of which are listed below. Regional dialects of british english British English (BrE) is a term used to differentiate between the form of the English language used in the British Isles and those used elsewhere. ...
American English (AmE) is the dialect of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ...
If English were made to be the sole language for the workings of the EU institutions and organisations, a considerable saving could be made. According to the EU's English language website [1], the cost of maintaining the EU's policy of multilingualism is € 1,178 million, which is 1.05% of the annual general budget of the EU. Divided by the population of the EU, this comes to € 2.58 per person per year.
Current problems with English
Cultural difficulties Although many native English speakers would rarely consider common speech to be offensive, at times, it would not be suited for an international lingua franca, which should be as culturally neutral as possible.
One of the goals of ELFE would be to remove phrases with inappropriate or culture-specific associations (for example, sport terminology). While this is derided by some as political correctness, proponents of ELFE argue that this is necessary for a lingua franca, because otherwise Europeans who adopt the English language as a means of everyday communication would also be forced into adopting the customs, traditions, and modes of thought specific to the major English-speaking countries, many of which are embodied in the language. Political correctness is the alteration of language to redress real or alleged injustices and discrimination or to avoid offense. ...
Pronunciation difficulties The sounds indicated by the letters th, voiced interdental fricative and voiceless interdental fricative, are not found in other European languages with the exception of Spanish, Albanian, Greek and Icelandic. French learners may tend to replace it with the sounds 's' and 'z', while Scandinavian and Italian learners may use the sounds 't' (or 'f') and 'd'. ELFE would choose one of these sounds and standardise it. The voiced dental fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...
The voiceless dental fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...
In most of the other Germanic languages, like German and Dutch, certain consonants are pronounced similarly, hence mug and muck, and bat and bad are pronounced alike to them. There is also confusion because they pronounce the present tense of build the same way as the past tense, built. This confusion also extends to their writing. The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family. ...
Phoneticists note that besides the difference in vowel quality, there is also a difference in length between the vowel sounds in the words bit and beat. Speakers of languages that don't have vowel pairs with this distinction, such as Italian and Spanish, often have difficulty with this distinction. The most obvious difficulty is the large number of vowel sounds in the English language, each one of which has to be learned by listening and training tongue placement. Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-18, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...
Intonation difficulties Like other languages of Europe, English is a language with stressed syllables. The stresses are both unmarked in writing and capable of changing the meaning of words and even sentences. Although this is a similarity in principle between many European languages, the manner of marking different types of information structure (relating to topic, comment, focus and presupposition) differs between different languages. Although words without the usual stress can be understood by native speakers, changes in meaning of sentences spoken by them ("I thought she was supposed to wash the pan" vs. "I thought she was supposed to wash the pan" vs. "I thought she was supposed to wash the pan" vs. "I thought she was supposed to wash the pan.) are sometimes entirely missed by non-native speakers. Topic can refer to: one of the Topics in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A subject of discussion, see On-topic In linguistics, the Topic (or theme) is the part of a proposition that is being talked about (predicated). ...
Look up Comment on Wiktionary, the free dictionary In computer programming, comments are parts of the source code which, together with its layout, are used to explain the code. ...
FOCUS is a software product of Information Builders Inc. ...
In linguistics, a presupposition is background belief, relating to an utterance, that: must be mutually known or assumed by the speaker and addressee for the utterance to be considered appropriate in context Will generally remain a necessary assumption whether the utterance is placed in the form of an assertion, denial...
Punctuation differences The British use their punctuation rather similarly to the French, but not entirely. Although people can learn another language fluently, they often slip back to the punctuation of their native one. German for instance has very distinctive rules for the placement of commas, which English lacks, that can be encountered in many English texts written by Germans. Several forms of quotation marks and number formats may be seen in non-native English texts. Quotation marks, also called quotes or inverted commas, are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, or a phrase. ...
The decimal separator is a symbol used to mark the boundary between the integer and the fractional parts of a decimal numeral. ...
Vocabulary difficulties Non-English speakers, especially the Japanese, sometimes take English words and modify them for concepts that they think are appropriate, but which will not be comprehended by native speakers. There are also many false friends in English, such as the French and German words actuel (aktuell) and eventuel (eventuell), which in English mean real and would come to be, but in French and German mean rather current and possible. False friends are pairs of words in two languages (or letters in two alphabets) that look and/or sound similar, but differ in meaning. ...
It is expected that a standardised ELFE would declare many of these neologisms normative, forcing native speakers to use them when communicating with other Europeans. A neologism is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (coined) — often to apply to new concepts, or to reshape older terms in newer language form. ...
Spelling difficulties English is known to have one of the most difficult spelling systems among European languages, and mistakes among its native speakers are quite common: there is a relatively high proportion of dyslexics among native English speakers compared to native speakers of languages with a more regular orthography. Conversion of written text (most often what a foreign learner meets first) into spoken words is equally difficult and challenging. This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...
The orthography of a language is the set of symbols (glyphs and diacritics) used to write a language, as well as the set of rules describing how to write these glyphs correctly, including spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. ...
The British spell many words as the French do; Americans instead spell a few words as the Germans do. But the French and Germans spell many similar words differently and will use these in their writing. (See also the recent experiences with German spelling reform). The German spelling reform (Rechtschreibreform) was an international agreement signed in 1996 by the governments of the German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland), concerning the reform of German spelling. ...
An article published in The Guardian in 2001[2], regarding the use of the English language around the world, noted: The Guardian is a British newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. ...
- The 13 spellings for a sound like sh - shoe, sugar, issue, mansion, mission, nation, suspicion, ocean, conscious, chaperon, schist, fuchsia and pshaw - are a source of weakness, not strength.
See also English-speaking Europe consists of the constituent nations of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), a former part of the UK (the Republic of Ireland), two former British colonies (Cyprus, Malta) and a current British colony Gibraltar, plus the Crown dependencies. ...
Euro-English (also Euroenglish or Euro-Englisch) terms are English translations of European concepts that are not native to English-speaking countries. ...
Look up Esperanto in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Ido (pronounced //), a constructed language, was created to become a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds, easier to learn than any ethnic language. ...
The constructed language Interlingua is an international auxiliary language (IAL) published in 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). ...
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