Salute,

Io initiava un discussion super interlingua al gruppo de novas Usenet
talk.politics.european-union (in anglese). Forsan alcuno vole
participar in le debatto con le scepticos la?

Ligamine cliccabile: <news:talk.politics.european-union>

Le nomine del "thread" es: "A Single European Language"

Vide hic infra un message recente.

- Martijn

From: Nils Zonneveld <[log in to unmask]>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.european-union
Subject: Re: A Single European Language
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 12:52:17 +0200
Organization: Nilsies little old network
Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]>

Martijn Dekker wrote:

>
>  True enough. That's no reason to stop thinking about the matter and
>  consider other possible solutions for specific situations.
>
>  English is far too hard to learn for most non-native speakers to become
>  fluent in it, and that includes most politicians. There is a good reason
>  why the European Parliament spends 60% of its budget for internal
>  translation.
>

English is at the other hand the only natural language that is a
compromise between the latin and the germanic languages. Because it is a
natural language it's maybe somewhat harder to learn then an artificial
language, but it is much easier to learn then German or French which are
solely germanic or latin based.

>  But all the European Parliament members could become fluent in
>  Interlingua in a month or two, and get rid of this problem. That's
>  impossible with English, which its messed-up phonetical system, and
>  needlessly complicated and inconsistent vocabulary and grammar.
>

I simply don't believe you. I had a look at Interlingua and it looked
pretty alien to me. I'm not an intellectual who studied Latin and
Interlingua is in my eyes nothing more then a dumbed down Latin, it
doesn't contain any familiar germanic words. When you have to learn
English you have at least some germanic words to hold on to. With
Interlingua you would have to take a crash course Latin first, that
surely would take me more then 2 months.

Interlingua as Europe's second language would definitely favour the
speakers of romance languages. Not that there is anything wrong with
that, but as a native Dutch speaker I would prefer English. It is not a
sin to assert your own interests.


>  > So,citizens of the Unions member states should,IMO,all be at least
>  > bi-lingual...
>  > by mastering their  "native tongue",and English!
>
>  Except, of course, those whose native tongue *is* English.
>
>  So the native speakers (read: the Brits) can talk all the rest under the
>  table in negotiations.
>

As you know, many business negotiations are held in English in the
Netherlands. If we really would be in such disadvantaged position by
having to negotiate in a foreign language, we had to be broke by now. Au
contraire! We are far from broke.

>  Does that seem unfair to anyone else?

Since when things have to be fair? The world never has been fair and
never will be. It seems that you are suffering a bit from a Calimero-complex?

Groetjes,

Nils


--
"Misschien is niets geheel waar, en zelfs dat niet"
Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker) - Idee 1