100 posts
Is having Maltese as an EU language a waste of money?
1. Although Maltese and English are official languages in Malta, Maltese is designated as the sole national language in Malta's constitution, with all the legal ramifications that would suggest. There might be just a handful of us, and most of us...
Kaksikielisyys on iso ilo
Tyttäremme sai syntyessään suuren lahjan: kaksikielisyyden. Koska hänen äitinsä on suomenkielinen ja isänsä hollanninkielinen, hän sai lahjaksi suomen ja hollannin. Meille oli jo alusta asti selvää, että minä puhun hänelle suomea, miehe...
EU2020 stands for 20 missing languages
What does the Commission's Europe 2020 web page Annual Growth Surveys have in common with Economic and Financial Affairs (Ecfin) page EU economic governance and president José Manuel Barroso's own res gestae on New action for growth, governance and...
Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää!
Finland celebrates its independence (from Russia) on 6 December. As a Finn living in Belgium, I will celebrate it today by reflecting for a moment on the language situation in Finland and what it has meant to me. I grew up in Finland, a Nordic countr...
European Day of Languages: Oh Paris, comment je t’aime!
As part of our European Day of Languages mini-series, we would like to share an excerpt of an article by Hannah Kelly, a student from the UK currently living in Paris. In the article she talks about her experiences of learning French and the cu...
2nd Day of Multilingual Blogging / 2e Blog in verschillende talen
Haven’t written a blog for almost a year so the 2nd Day of Multilingual Blogging is a good opportunity. Last year I wrote about languages in the EU institutions, working languages, daily practice, etc. Below an exchange I had today on Twitter a...
Celebrate the 10th European Day of Languages!
There have already been lots of events going on to celebrate the 10th European Day of Languages and there will be even more happening today and over the next few weeks. The Language Rich Europe blog will be looking at a selection of these in mor...
European Day of Languages 26 September 2011 is Bloggingportal day
It is time to remember the annual 26 September European Day of Languages, now into its 10th edition. Language learning is at the heart of the objectives, so become inspired.The European Day of Languages is arranged jointly by the Council of Europe an...
Going Dutch in Brussels
People always think that I’m a nutter or at least come from Mars when I admit that when I moved to Brussels for work three years ago I spoke Dutch but didn’t know a single word in French. (No, I am not Dutch.) OK, it can happen that you...
Princess, 9, Gives Speech in Dutch
Is there significance in the language used in the first speech by a 9-year-old Belgian princess?
Eesti kuum kartul - Russia’s Estonian hot potato
CSIS, the Center (sic) for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, has just published a long report on the Russian speakers of Estonia. Some comments follow. 1. The Russophone community in Estonia is not as homogeneous as it a...
Expert: multilingualism index to illustrate the current situation in Europe
Kutlay Yagmur, associate professor at Tilburg University and one of our Language Rich Europe data analysis experts, is featured by the Mercator Research Centre as their ”Expert in the Spotlight” for September. In the article Kutlay dis...
What do we mean by language? (Madalena Cruz-Ferreira and Sunita Anne Abraham)
If someone asked you, “Do you know what the pro in pronoun stands for?” would you know the answer? Or, perhaps, “What is the most irregular verb in English?” Or maybe, “Do you know why (with exceptions, of course) we can add er or es...
2nd day of multilingual blogging
After we all had so much fun with it last year, who’s up for a 2nd Day of Multilingual Blogging? Again, the date would be 26 September and the idea would be to write your blog in a language you … Continue reading →...
Eurozone ”economic government” lost in translation?
Did the (Twin Peaks) ”economic government” for the eurozone get lost in translation? For the blog post Eurozone: Our new ”economic government” I watched the video of the press conference at the Élysée Palace, in Paris. Based on what I heard...
Buitenlanders leren de Nederlandse taal
After a year and a half of daily work learning the Dutch language, I disclose some of trials that meet the learner of the Dutch language over the Internet. The majority of trials are in the form of being stone walled and made the subject of games whe...
I have a book, and I’m not afraid to use it!
When I’ve been told that I could write something for the European Parliament’s blog I felt like I was asked to write a sequel for the Bible. My first thought was that everything must have been said and done by now, by the trainees before...
Some 50 million EU citizens, 10% of the EU population, speak a regional or minority language
Some of my recent posts (Reindeer racing in Sápmi, Lá Fhéile Pádraig Shona Duit, etc.) have been triggered by news items I’ve spotted in the Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity’s website. The NPLD is a pan-European network which covers...
EU publication update: Single Market Act in English, French and German
Yesterday morning, the final version of communication from the European Commission on the Single Market Act (SMA) COM(2011) 206 had not yet been posted in any language. We can now bring the glass-half-full people some good news. English The final...
Europe, Law, Democracy and the Role of Linguistic Diversity in Legal Processes
Research and Markets at BusinessWire.com asks in Linguistic Diversity and European Democracy:"What role does linguistic diversity play in European democratic and legal processes?"Read the article here.
EU Single Market Act launched (provisionally)
Yesterday, we looked at the background, the endorsement from the European Council, the advance information from the Commission, as well as the NPthinking blog, EurActiv, the letter from nine European leaders and the recent resolutions by the European...
French vs. English, Sarkozy, NPR, etc. etc.
The working-language battle continues in Brussels... See these three posts from the excellent Kovács & Kováts blog, which chronicles the Hungarian presidency of the EU. Looks a little like this old EurAmerican post, a throwback from all th...
The interpreter who started a war (...well, almost)
Photo: EPWe have been blogging repeatedly on the Brussels language regime and we can’t stop ourselves from continuing it. Even though the event described in this post happened in Strasbourg at the plenary session of the European Parliament, for...
A lingua franca for Europe? (Brussels Pidgin English III)
Gen 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.(As you will see from the text, there is a deep disagreement between Kovács and Kováts on language use, one of the few subjects whe...
Baker's dozen of Grahnlaw & Co. on EU affairs
As a fan of the Crustum bakery and cafeterias in Helsinki, here is a baker's dozen to offer you the latest entries on my three unilingual (EN, FI, SV) blogs and the trilingual one, at a glance: Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: EU2020-strategia: Energia 2020 G...
Apprendre l’anglais dès 3 ans
Le journal Le Monde de ce 23 janvier 2011 présente un article intitulé Le ministre de l’éducation envisage l’apprentissage de l’anglais dès 3 ans dans lequel il est question de l’annonce du ministre de l’éducation L...
Gül’s Diyarbakır visit: “President embraces use of Kurdish, reaffirms Turkish as official language
Kurdish Town of Cizre Becomes Bilingual from Bianet :: English The departments in the southeast Cizre municipality building, controlled by the pro-Kurdish BDP are titled in both Turkish and Kurdish. Inspite that Turkey officially recognizes only the...
EU Officials and English Proverbs
Real-Time Brussels analyzes the use of Latin words and English proverbs by EU officials.
MULTILINGUALISM: CHANGING THE MIND SET
Vilma Bačkiūtė from British Council Lithuania has given a talk at a conference back in 2009 suggesting that our mindset is changing and that the role that languages play in our lives has become curiously significant. The themes she tackles are st...
Colourful language at SSEES
Conceptual art has descended on the School of Slavonic and East European Studies - and not before time. Artist Julia Vogl has created an installation entitled Colouring the Invisible representing the different languages spoken by people p...
What’s your good reason?
After a very successful ”Day of Multilingual Blogging” organised during the European Day of Languages, the European Commission in the UK has launched a new challenging language related question/competition on their facebook page: What&...
Blogging in Swedish and Finnish
Call it self-referential, a holy or unholy mess or whatever, but I am going to take a look at my blogs in Swedish and Finnish. Here are a few facts and thoughts about my three blogs here on Blogger: Grahnlaw, Grahnblawg and Eurooppaoikeus With 1,884...
Full-bodied EU acquis – the bouquet of EU English
Yesterday’s blog post noted that between 2008 and 2009 the body of European Union legislation had decreased by some 2060 regulations and 80 directives: How much EU legislation in member state UK? Nosemonkey and House of Commons Library (15 October...
Brief status of sign language in Europe
A great number of languages exist within Europe – over two hundred in fact! Twenty-three of these are official languages of the EU; next to these national languages are many regional and minority languages. In addition to these are sign languages,...
EU Patent: Translation Into 'Language Customary In The Field Of International Technological Research'
On October 06, the Belgian EU Presidency has sent a paper to the EU Council which is titled Proposal for a Council Regulation on the translation arrangements for the European Union patent - Political orientation and which now has been made public as...
Portmanteau words: Denglisch in Europe
Europe’s hybrid languages are little spoken of though oft spoken. Trend tour of continental mouths, including Franglais, Spanglish, Italenglish, Ponglish, and so on, and so forth...
Siehst du mal gern la télévision?
Es gibt zwei Grunde, warum ich moechte, andere Sprachen zu sprechen. Wenn man eine andere Sprache lernt, entdeckt man natuerlich eine andere Kultur – man kann andere Musik, Geschichte und historische Perspektiven, und vielleicht noch Essen besser e...
Certamente, nei giornali italiani l’inglese c’è
Se qualcuno preferisce leggere la stampa italiana ma non parla bene la lingua, può approfittare della sezione inglese di qualche giornale italiano. Per esempio, uno dei più grandi quotidiani italiani è il Corriere della sera. Nel suo sito, nel men...
Day of Multilingual Blogging / Blog in verschillende talen
Most of my blogs are written in English, the language I use most often professionally. I write this blog in my mother tongue Dutch because of the Day of Multilingual Blogging. In de Europese Commissie, waar ik werk, zijn talen niet weg te denken. Er...
Je blogue, tu blogues, il blogue, etc
Bon, il parait que pour la journée internationale de je ne sais plus quoi (la crevette grise de Zélande? le multilingualisme?) il faut bloguer en utilisant une autre langue que d’habitude. Problème pour la déracinée que je suis: c’es...
Blogging in tongues
The bridge between the ‘Biblical’ headline and the Day of Multilingual Blogging is finding the key to a richer life. Day of Multilingual Blogging At a deeper level the aims of the Day of Multilingual Blogging are to promote language education and...
Carrières en Europe
September 26 2010 is European day of languages, and to mark this event, bloggers from across Europe, and beyond, are taking part in Multilingual blogging day. I'm also participating and have published my video blog in French. You can see more multili...
Le jour est arrivé!
Finalement, on y est: la journée du blogging multilingue. Une idée qui m’est venue après une discussion sur Twitter si l’Euroblogosphere est trop anglophone. Il m’était clair que même si la plupart des Euroblogs sont écrits en...
Brush up your Shakespeare, Goethe, Molière, Dante, Cervantes or whoever: Day of Multilingual Blogging
Yes, brush up your Shakespeare, Goethe, Molière, Dante, Cervantes or whoever, or start learning a new language. Tomorrow, Sunday 26 September 2010, people all over Europe celebrate the European Day of Languages, organised by the Council of Europe...
Quality cinema needs EU?
The England Expects blog believes that the European Union should not support European films, because statistics show that more people go to see American movies, and anyway they’re in funny foreign languages and have morals, so they must be rubb...
Et pourquoi pas English?
On Tuesday, Libération’s Brussels correspondent, the indomitable Jean Quatremer, mounted his favorite hobby horse, the perils of the use of English at the Commission. This time it was Viviane Reding’s condemnation of France&r...
Bloggers in Europe: Join Day of Multilingual Blogging on 26 September 2010
The previous blog post mentioned the European Day of Languages, which is celebrated each 26 September. Officially organised by the Council of Europe and the European Union, the purpose of the EDL is to inspire you to learn a foreign language. Day of...
Join European Day of Languages 26 September 2010
Here is something for teachers, students, bloggers, Twitterers, Facebookers and many more in Europe. The European Day of Languages is celebrated each 26 September, officially organised by the Council of Europe and the European Union, but the real pu...
Est-ce qu’il faut parler les langues?
There have been a lot of pieces in the news the last few days, prompted by the GSCE results and the fact that, apart from Spanish, numbers taking GCSEs in modern languages have dropped. The Independent leader criticises the decision to scrap mandator...
After Eurogoblin: Why is English not the lingua franca of European integration?
The free movement of goods, persons, services and capital has been popular in England, at least when headed towards the European Continent, but the free flow of thoughts less so in the reverse direction, if threatening to enrich Britain. Have you ev...
