edward olive english for business and actors links and resources online

English as a lingua franca for Europe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

An article published in The Guardian in 2001[2], regarding the use of the English language around the world, noted:

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.

List of countries where English is an official language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The following is a list of sovereign states and territories where English is an official language, in order of population. Several of these nations, like Canada and the Philippines, use English as an official language but not the sole official language.

English in the U.S. and UK is de facto only; these nations have no official language. New Zealand also has English as a de facto official language, but also has two other de jure official languages (Maori and New Zealand Sign Language).

The status of English as a country's official language does not necessarily correlate with the number of English-speakers in that country. This is especially true for India and many African nations, and to a smaller extent for the Philippines.

Note that almost all of these countries are current or former colonies of the UK (see also British Empire). Two exceptions are the Philippines and Liberia, both former US colonies. Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands are also currently US territories.

These nations total 2,135 million people, 15,583,152 square miles and about 18 trillion US dollars in GDP. India represents over half this population, and the United States represents over half this GDP.

Map of nations using English as an official languageRank Country Population
1 India 1,103,600,000
2 United States 297,600,000
3 Pakistan 162,419,946
4 Nigeria 128,771,988
5 Philippines 87,857,473
6 United Kingdom 60,441,457
7 South Africa 44,344,136
8 Kenya 33,829,590
9 Canada 32,300,000
10 Uganda 27,269,482
11 Ghana 21,029,853
12 Australia 20,300,000
13 Sri Lanka 20,064,776
14 Cameroon 16,380,005
15 Zimbabwe 12,746,990
16 Malawi 12,158,924
17 Zambia 11,261,795
18 Rwanda 8,440,820
19 Hong Kong [2] 6,898,686
20 Sierra Leone 6,017,643
21 Papua New Guinea 5,545,268
22 Singapore 4,425,720
23 Republic of Ireland 4,130,700
24 New Zealand 4,108,561
25 Liberia 3,482,211
26 Jamaica 2,731,832
27 Namibia 2,030,692
28 Lesotho 1,867,035
29 Botswana 1,640,115
30 The Gambia 1,593,256
31 Mauritius 1,230,602
32 Swaziland 1,173,900
33 Trinidad and Tobago 1,088,644
34 Fiji 893,354
35 Guyana 765,283
36 Solomon Islands 538,032
37 Malta 398,534
38 The Bahamas 301,790
39 Belize 279,457
40 Barbados 279,254
41 Vanuatu 205,754
42 Guam 168,564
43 Saint Lucia 166,312
44 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 117,534
45 U.S. Virgin Islands 108,708
46 Micronesia 108,105
47 Kiribati 103,092
48 Jersey 90,812
49 Grenada 89,502
50 Seychelles 81,188
51 Isle of Man 75,049
52 Dominica 69,029
53 Antigua and Barbuda 68,722
54 Bermuda 65,365
55 Guernsey 65,228
56 Marshall Islands 59,071
57 Cayman Islands 44,270
58 Saint Kitts and Nevis 38,958
59 Gibraltar 27,884
60 British Virgin Islands 22,643
61 Cook Islands 21,388
62 Turks and Caicos Islands 20,556
63 Palau 20,303
64 Anguilla 13,254
65 Montserrat 9,341
66 Saint Helena 7,460
67 Falkland Islands 2,967
68 Norfolk Island 1,828
69 Christmas Island [3] 1,600
70 Pitcairn Islands 46

Statcounter.com

Search Engine Optimization and Free Submission

EU Web Directory - Searchable directory of websites in Europe organised by subject.