Do Languages And Politics Mix Well?
It’s probably just a coincidence, but the blog name ‘Certain Ideas of Europe‘ (on the Economist.com website) brings to mind the ‘certain idea of France’ that has informed so much of France’s foreign policy in the past decades.
But the post I found, a fairly old one for this day and age, since it was written in January, has this heading: ‘Five months left to learn French‘. It’s interesting and funny, as I’m reading it just after France started its 6-month turn at leading the European Union. I have written somewhere that this made for a very lively Spring season in the conference interpretation community. My bet is that the Fall season is going to be busy too, and I am already predicting an incredibly crazy month of December, with -as is always the case, but probably even more so with this Presidency- the outgoing country desperately trying to finish off jobs, putting together last-minute agreements, in the hope of leaving a remarkable legacy. Hmmm.
The post concludes with a quote from the French European Affairs Minister, saying:
“Also, a European presidency in which we will be using French to communicate, a great deal.”
Ha. Indeed. As a professional translator, I can only applaud. More business. This is one of the favorite themes of this Presidency. We’ll see. However, what I found really funny, were the comments. Same old stories. Same old rivalry. Same old tally of who in Europe wants to speak English, not French. (What about German? Spanish?) Same old accounting of how much French the English language has absorbed over the centuries (and vice versa?). Same old squabbling: ‘French is a dead language.’ No, it’s not.’ ‘Yes it is.’ One could have argued: ‘What about British English?’
Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Do we care?
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Tags: English, French, Translation
July 12th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Considering that recently I’ve been translating more from French than from English, and that I’ll be doing so for the second part of the year, French doesn’t seem so dead after all!
Ilarias last blog post..With a little help from a false friend
July 14th, 2008 at 12:05 am
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