BS: official language of united Europe

Subject: BS: official language of united Europe
From: GUEST,Gerhard Schroeder
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 04:28 PM

Romano Prodi has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the state, rather than German which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, The Mussolini's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Austro-English" (or, if nobody will be offended, "Austrionics")..
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k".
This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 04:32 PM

See this thread; RE: BS: English, California's official language

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 04:47 PM

And I thought we were going to have an erudite discussion on the reletive merits of Esperanto versus Romanch.

On a minor point are we to adopt English English, American English, Australian English, NZ Pommese or Pidgeon English?

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Peace
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 05:37 PM

No question about it. We have to adopt Canadian English.

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 05:51 PM

The real Newfoundland version... That'd mean the English didn't have too unfair an advantage over the others, when it came to making head nor tail of it.

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Peace
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 06:28 PM

'ear, 'ear. It's my understanding that if you wake a Newfie up at three o'clock in the morning, he talks just like a Canadian! The 'accent' and lingo is catching. I was in Burin for a few weeks visiting some friends many years ago. Within two days I was saying things like "How bes you?" or "I bes good, my son." (The bes is pronounced bees.) But, no doubt the BBC will hold out for its version of the language.

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Deda
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 06:29 PM

Europe had a common language for centuries. Latin. It wasn't any harder than English, certainly its spelling made 100% more sense. And the news of the world is still being broadcast in it right here -- well, in Finland. Probably there are still more Latin speakers (or at least readers) than Finnish speakers, outside of Finland itself. I am pretty sure that the Vatican's radio station also has at least one Latin radio broadcast on its regular calendar.

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Gareth
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 06:45 PM

Actually I'am multilingual

I speak -

English

Sarf Lundon

and SWelsh

all fluently

I also have a smattering of -

French

Afrikaans

oh yes - living in South Wales I use it more on the 'Cat than in real life - Welsh.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Jeanie
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 06:47 PM

Bring back *Proto-Indo-European, that's what I say !

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Blackcatter
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 06:56 PM

Yiddish

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Peace
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 06:56 PM

or Frisian

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Snuffy
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 06:57 PM

Yeah, but how do you pronounce that * thing, Jeanie?

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Peace
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 07:04 PM

Suum cuique, and then no one loses a language. If not, Yiddish is good.

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 03:23 AM

Pidgin English as spoken in Papua-Niugini. Its orthography was fixed by German missionaries when translating the Bible and is truly German. So this proud people has a hand in also. For the benefit of our even prouder neighbours we could add all words concerning love and wine.
But to stop the jokes: While Latin (which I should prefer) is a synthetic language needing an elaborate morphology, English has changed to an analytic language which can discard most of its morphology. That will be the winner in the end.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Ringer
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 07:26 AM

I think I agree, Wilfried. But not because it's analytical, just because it's the second language of just about everybody for whom it's not the first language.

(And crosswords are more fun in an analytical language.)

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 10:44 AM

No, Ringer, that's not true: In the former French occupation zone of Germany (Rhine border) French is taught as the second language, and in the Soviet zone Russian was the second language, so also in all countries of the Warszaw Treaty Organization.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Jeanie
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 04:14 PM

Snuffy - I've thought of a cunning plan for how to denote the * symbol when speaking Proto Indo-European. As the * symbol basically means "We really don't have much of a clue here, but to make it look impressive, we will put * before this concocted word", when you speak Proto-Indo-European, all you have to do to show the * is to shrug your shoulders dramatically and cast your eyes heavenward, in a sort-of Gallic manner. This should (maybe) help to appease any French people, who may be a bit peeved that French isn't the official European language!

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Snuffy
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 07:53 PM

*merci

Subject: RE: BS: official language of united Europe
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 08:27 PM

After heaing about the bees in Newfieland, I see that ebonics rules!