European Union..a silly joke or a really bad idea

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Originally posted by Sten Sture d:ä
Even if it is impractical to translate into say 30 official languages.
It is a question of democracy to let the MPs speak in their mother language.

I agree but does it need to be translated into every single official language of member states. Even the Scottish Parliament is regretting that it has 3 official languages and already they've ran out of storage facilities due to translating them. I think it would be much easier to have a few traslated languages but have the MEPs able to speak any language used in the EU be it English or Basque.

 

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I always thought Austria-Hungary started WW1.

 

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And if we seak English/French/German as official language we have no translation costs? Bullshit. We Have the right to read every law that affects us in our own language. If we translate first-hand or second-hand does not change the fact. And it's not OK to force everyone to learn English or whatever. (to my knowledge) Even in the USA there is no federal law that says the parliament has to speak English.

 

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Originally posted by Gorion
I always thought Austria-Hungary started WW1.

Lol, good point

 

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Even if you learn English, as a non native English speaking there is limitations in use of a non native language. I know it out of daily professional use of both English and German, you do not catch the nuances you have in your native language even if the second language is close to your own.
Tocome to law texts if the law making shall remain democratic you must have the possibility to read all the laws and other official documents in your miother language.

And we must have in mind that the majoroty do only use English passive by listening, not active for speaking, reding and writing.


If we mean that OUR future Europoean Union shall be a functional democracy we must respect the languages and cultures of OUR Europe.

 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Looks like you hit the nail on the head.

 

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Originally posted by SoleSurvivor
And if we seak English/French/German as official language we have no translation costs? Bullshit. We Have the right to read every law that affects us in our own language. If we translate first-hand or second-hand does not change the fact. And it's not OK to force everyone to learn English or whatever. (to my knowledge) Even in the USA there is no federal law that says the parliament has to speak English.

Indeed there is no federal law requiring Parliament to speak English. George Clinton can use any language he chooses

 

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As sa subject to His Majesty the King I belong to one people who has
the second longest tradition of rule under the law in Europe.

And I will not argue that our or the Brittish system is better than the continetal.
But I will hesitate to say that to us a people who have had total disclosure of the governemental papers except for forreign affairs and defence matters since the fundamental law of the right of free printing and speech passed the Riksdag in 1766 and never had any revolutions.
The secret bureacracy in the EU seems to be strange.

 

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Originally posted by Sten Sture d:ä
Tocome to law texts if the law making shall remain democratic you must have the possibility to read all the laws and other official documents in your miother language.

And we must have in mind that the majoroty do only use English passive by listening, not active for speaking, reding and writing.


If we mean that OUR future Europoean Union shall be a functional democracy we must respect the languages and cultures of OUR Europe.

I don't get your point? Laws can still be translated, and will be. It's the use of this in Parliament and Commision offices, which is the problem. And as deputiees have right to speak in their native language, well, i doubt there are many people who will understand greek, for example...

 

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To the point a Polish MP or Swedish it does not really matter. Helds a speech in bad English and does not come to the point so the other meber missunderstand him/her. That is worse for the parlimentary business than the clumsy translation process where you at least use trained liguists to make the translations a better way.

 

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Forcing the people to speak French in parliament etc means to virtually exclude everyone from lawmaking who cannot speak french or can only speak it improperly.

 

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Well, if you think that requiring knoledge of one foreign language from would-be-MP is too much, well

 

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Knowledge of a language is one thing and to use it as a funvctional working languages is much harder.

If we abolish the right to use the native language we exclude a lot of people from the process and the the democracy will be killed and turned to a technocracy.

 

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So choose latin. AFAIK, no one uses it as native language

 

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The Knights of St. John's don't?

 

[Dark Knight]

I would point out that it's a relatively simple matter to provide translation services in the EU parliament so that any MP can speak in their native language. After all, the UN does this for far more languages, so the cost for the EU parliament shouldn't be too high (although I suppose a few languages like Romansch will have to be excluded ).

However, it is a much more costly matter to provide all laws and services in a variety of languages. Even in the US, the practical necessity of translating everything to Spanish nowadays carries quite a significant cost with it.

 

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Originally posted by Dark Knight
I would point out that it's a relatively simple matter to provide translation services in the EU parliament so that any MP can speak in their native language. After all, the UN does this for far more languages, so the cost for the EU parliament shouldn't be too high (although I suppose a few languages like Romansch will have to be excluded ).

However, it is a much more costly matter to provide all laws and services in a variety of languages. Even in the US, the practical necessity of translating everything to Spanish nowadays carries quite a significant cost with it.

What is this language Romansch? I haven't heard of it and I can say I know about languages... And it is funny to see how some people can be serious about using only a few languages in the parlament. How many of you think they can hold a serious conversation in english if you have to talk rather than write, let alone hold a speech.

 

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Romansch = Rätoromanisch. A vulgar latin language spoken in the Swiss cantone Graub¨nden by some 50.000. Its related to the modern latinlaguages as Icelandic to medern Scandinavian.

Well English is one of the most difficult languages to be really fluent in du to the huge ammount of words over 3 mio. Compared to French, Spanish and German that all have less than 1 mio.

 

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Originally posted by Sten Sture d:ä
Romansch = Rätoromanisch. A vulgar latin language spoken in the Swiss cantone Graub¨nden by some 50.000. Its related to the modern latinlaguages as Icelandic to medern Scandinavian.

Well English is one of the most difficult languages to be really fluent in du to the huge ammount of words over 3 mio. Compared to French, Spanish and German that all have less than 1 mio.

I know about it but I knew it as Retoroman, couln't make the connection with Romansch. And my point was if ANY EU MP is not allowed to adress the others in his native language this is an unacceptable reduction of his abilities. And choosing only one language to be used in the parlament would be suicide for the EU.

 

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I don't see any need for ONE official language. Why exclude people from the political process? It doesn't make sense. But of course you have to have a working language in the various EU institutions (like the ECB etc, MPs should of course be able to use their own language in Parliament), and there the only reasonable choice is English. Every other language is inferior to English as a universal form of communication.

I don't see a big problem with having an army of translators. The cost of those are still nothing compared to the agriculture costs of the EU.