While English is still the de facto lingua franca, with the US burning bridges to Europe like there’s no tomorrow, and the UK having left the EU, should they adopt an easy-to-learn auxillary language?

I’m thinking of an language like Esperanto, but not necessarily that. I was intrigued by Esperanto and went through the course on lernu.net and found it easy to pick up (though I am by no means fluent yet). While it is constructed, it was developed without any modern linguistic knowledge, so another option could be to construct a new language for this purpose, or adopt another already developed language that would serve the purpose better (I don’t have an overview of what is out there).

I know there are several official languages already, but I imagine that leads to a lot of overhead. An auxillary language could make communication easier, and make it easier for citizens of any member state to participate in the Union, and would to some extent remove any power asymmetry resulting from native mastery of a language.

Good idea? Poor idea? Why? Why not?

        • remon@ani.socialEnglish
          4·
          3 days ago

          It is currently working? You use a live translator when one is required.

            • remon@ani.socialEnglish
              5·
              3 days ago

              I would assume so for places like the EU, UN or other big international conferences, yes.

              • solbear@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
                1·
                3 days ago

                That is what sounds so inefficient to me. It probably works fine at the bigger assemblies, but within smaller agencies located around Europe? I don’t know, but my guess is that they adopt a small subset of official languages as the working language (do you know?) which I think becomes a barrier to participation for citizens of member states who do not speak those languages natively.

                • remon@ani.socialEnglish
                  4·
                  3 days ago

                  But adding a new language will just make it even more inefficent.

                  Why not just use English which is already well established and even widley known amongst most European citizens.

                  • solbear@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
                    11·
                    3 days ago

                    But adding a new language will just make it even more inefficent.

                    The idea being that eventually (though that would need to be far in the future) you would not need to translate as it is a common language among all member states.

                    Why not just use English which is already well established and even widley known amongst most European citizens.

                    Because it is a difficult language to master and it puts many non-native speakers at a disadvantage. As pointed out above, there are only two countries who do speak English natively now, but depending on your native language, some citizens still have an substantial easier time learning English.