Without the UK providing a large number of native English speakers to the European Union, will the version of English used by the EU be so dramatically altered because of Brexit, that it will be unrecognizable to English speakers unfamiliar with the way the language is used in EU proceedings?
The Relationship Between Brexit and English Language Usage
Will English Stay an Official Language of the EU after Brexit?
The European Union has 24 official languages, but the three working languages used for official communications—English, French, and German—come from the countries with the largest economies in the EU. So what does the relationship between Brexit and English language usage mean for the future of English in the EU? There’s more to it than you might think.
A few political officials jumped on the chance to demote English from its status as a working language, with French politicians being the strongest advocates. Although England was the EU member nation with the largest number of native English speakers, it was not the only one. Ireland and Malta both operate in English, and with Scotland threatening to leave the UK and join the EU, there m
ay be three countries that use English as their primary language in international politics. The EU is home to many different languages, so providing translation and interpreting services is nothing new. However, for those used to receiving information and operating in English, the exit will mean either learning another working language or relying more heavily on professional translation services.
Removing English could create the need for a variety of linguistic services, such as document translation and language subtitling, for those unfamiliar with either French or German. Additionally, if the working languages were reduced, people from certain areas, namely Eastern Europe, would have a hard time interpreting the news. English is more widely understood and easily translated into other languages than either French or German. This in mind, the situation may shift to be less about the relationship between Brexit and English language usage, and more focused on English usage across the entire EU and the feasibility of changing that main working language.
Brexit | Euro English
But what does it mean to speak English? Euro English is the variety used by the EU that is not spoken by any native speaker. There are made up words, as well as existing words with different or even completely opposite meanings from those of standard Irish or British English. This has become such a notable problem that the European Court of Auditors released a report titled Misused English Words and Expressions in EU Publications. “Comitology,” meaning a committee procedure, is an invented word not understood by most native English speakers. Although trying to take the stem from “committee,” the word is misspelled and meaningless outside of Euro English. ‘Delay’ is commonly understood to mean that something will be late, but in the EU it means something more like a deadline. Therefore, it fits in different grammatical situations. A native English speaker may know that one cannot respect a delay, but in the European Union that usage would be acceptable.
The report includes suggested alternatives which would allow Euro English and British or Irish English to be mutually intelligible. However, without England as native speakers in the EU, the variety of English used could change even more dramatically. This could create problems when translating the documents released by the European Union. Professional translators would need to know the nuances of both Euro English and British or Irish English to prevent meanings from being altered in a significant way when translating into a different language. Due to the nature of the relationship between Brexit and English language usage, there is potential for less focus on English. With less of an emphasis on English as a working language, some people could, unfortunately, get lost in translation.
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