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Only few days into the new Presidency the Danish Presidency and European Commission have published a surprise agreement in the Official Journal (OJ 223) whereby Euro-English will become the official language of the EU (European Union). The Danish Presidency is very keen to promote this following the abject failure of the recent Spanish EU Presidency in its attempt to introduce Spanish throughout the EU. Denmark recognised that they hadn't a hope of getting Danish in, so instead they are now promoting English rather than German, French Danish, Spanish, Greek or Irish. The Euro-English move is now being enthusiastically promoted by all almost all other European governments as an excellent compromise. The thought of having Greek, Irish or even Flemish as the single official European language really struck terror into the bureaucratic heart of Brussels. With enlargement, the tower of Babel will become even worse with Lithuanian, Polish, Latvian, Serbo Croat, Bulgarian , Hungarian, etc., etc. all thrown into the mix. A single language is seen as absolutely essential for economic progress.
Contrary to expectations, however, the UK Government (Le Royaume Uni) is implacably opposed to the new Euro-English move. It had been thought that introducing Euro-English would have been warmly welcomed by Tony and Cheri Blair - whatever about the Queen (neé Batenburg) who is of German extraction and married to a Greek.
Once the Irish people ratify the Nice Treaty of course, what the English think won't matter any more. Reliable sources believe that Bertie Ahern will actually use the UK objections in the new Nice Campaign to his advantage. A "beggar thy neighbour" approach by the Yes Campaign will obviously appeal to the Irish public (i.e. vote for the Nice Treaty to spite the British opposition to Euro-English). The Pro-neutrality campaign are seriously worried by this as they know that Irish voters are not neutral when it comes to a chance to beat the English. The delicious irony of spiting the English by supporting a vote in favour of the English language is even more irresistible. Mr Ahern will win the Mark 2 Nice Referendum by a landslide this time and be able to go back to Brussels after the Referendum with his head held high. The No Campaigners are now reported to be aligning themselves with some radical Gael Scoileanna in Connemara plus some dissident elements in TG 4 opposed to showing risqueé films on the well-respected Irish language TV channel - but really Bertie is now sure to win Nice Mark 2.
So what does Euro-English mean for the average EU citizen over the five year changeover period?
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 favour 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 reil 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!!!!
If zis mad you smil pleas pas on to oza pepl.
© Copyright 2006 by the author(s)/photographer(s) and www.castlebar.ie
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