on the World's most spoken language: Bad English

Europe’s common tongue: bad English

Sebastian Huempfer, an editor for the Free Speech Debate, reviews an EU English – British English dictionary aimed at helping native speakers understand the European Union’s rather weird brand of English better.

Badly spoken English is the most widely spoken language in the world, according to German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. The European Union, home to 24 official and working languages, has embraced this principle. Although most official documents are translated into the various official languages, a modified version of English prevails when it comes to unofficial communication. The only ones who are having trouble joining the conversation are the British. A fog of linguistic innovation lies over the Channel, and the continent is isolated.

An EU English – British English dictionary may help the native speakers reintegrate. In 2013 Jeremy Gardner, senior translator at the European Court of Auditors, released a memo outlining “the most commonly misused English words and expressions in EU publications”. He argued that because the target audience of English-language EU documents are mostly British and Irish EU residents, these documents should be written in such a way as to ensure that a British or Irish English speaker would be able to understand them.

Thus, some of the most idiosyncratically continental European additions to the English language – nouns like “comitology” and “planification” or verbs like “to precise” and “to homogenise” – ought to be avoided altogether. Others, like “delay” (which means “deadline” in Brussels) and “to dispose of” (continental English for “to possess”) should be used in a way that avoids miscommunication. The warning: “Please ensure that you dispose of all the correct documents so that you can make the delay” could otherwise wreak unintended havoc.

Those familiar with how the European Union operates may not be surprised to hear that “actorness” (active participation), “Anglo-Saxon” (English and American), “budget line” (they are not sure what it means) and “sickness insurance” (health insurance) are among the most commonly misused English words and expressions in Brussels. Many of the items on Gardner’s list are in fact Freudian slips that reveal as much as they obscure about how Europe’s civil servants think. In other cases, it is clear which country the neologism comes from; many of them make perfect sense to a French or German speaker.

Gardner’s dictionary is partly tongue-in-cheek and makes for an entertaining read, though much of the humour will get lost in translation. Underneath the surface, however, some serious questions lurk. As the translators of Free Speech Debate will confirm, transferring meaning from one language into another is a tricky business. Humour and emotion, metaphors and rhetorical flourishes tend to be the first to be left behind. Shades of meaning, purposeful ambiguity and double entendres are also easily lost. Thus, it is hard to believe that a European government of so few native speakers and so much linguistic improvisation can run smoothly. And it is not surprising that Europe’s citizens are disenchanted with a political elite that speaks in incomprehensible tongues of its own.

Gardner admits that there are many varieties of English spoken all over the world, from Kingston to Delhi to London and, as of the 21st century, Strasbourg and Brussels. None of these is any more or less correct than the next, and the point of the EU dictionary is not to teach the continentals how to speak proper English, but to help them avoid miscommunication. Who owns the English language has long been a contested question. If Lagos spawns more English-language films than Los Angeles and Brussels produces more English-language memos than London, the obvious answer is that the question misses the point.

What really matters is how all the different English speakers of this world, whatever letters they drop and whatever variety they speak, can communicate efficiently. A greater awareness of the pitfalls of English-to-English translation is surely a good first step, and Gardner’s dictionary therefore an important contribution to bringing together a Union divided by a common language.

Sebastian Huempfer is associate editor of Free Speech Debate.