Euro English
Euro English is a series of varieties of English that can be found in continental Europe and especially in the institutions of the European Union and among young, mobile Europeans (e.g. from the Erasmus program ).
history
The term was first used by Broder Carstensen in 1986 to describe the adoption of Anglicisms in Europe.
With the enlargement of the European Union , the importance of the other two working languages of the EU ( German and French ) decreased . The progressive Erasmus program created a new class of mobile Europeans with the need for a lingua franca to communicate with one another.
The question of whether the peculiarities of English from non-native speakers on the European continent is a separate variant of English has not yet been decided. According to Forche, many of the characteristics of Euro-English can simply be viewed as typical mistakes made by language beginners, some of which have become more and more common. Institutionalization could, however, follow under the influence of a European class.
Influences
There are two kinds of influences on Euro-English: one is top-down and the other is bottom-up .
The top-down influences come from institutions such as B. the European Commission's English Style Guide, which recommends certain English stylistic devices for written official documents. By and large, it follows Standard English, but a selection is made in cases where there are variations. For example, the spelling judgment is recommended instead of judgment .
The bottom-up influences come from people's practical preferences (38% of EU citizens speak English as a foreign language).
Some words are given a plural S in Euro-English, analogous to words from other European languages, e.g. B. "informations" and "competences" although this is considered a mistake in British and American English.
Other words such as “actor”, “axis” or “agent”, analogous to other European languages, have a more extensive meaning than they actually have in English.
Examples
| Standard English | Euro English | Origin and interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| tourist , used as an attribute | touristic | Touristic is usually not used for places that specialize in tourists, unlike its counterpart in other European languages (French touristique , Dutch tourist , German tourist , Spanish / Portuguese / Galician turístico , Catalan turístic , Italian turistico , Turkish turistik , Polish turystyczny , Serbo-Croatian / Macedonian turístički ). |
| Last October I had the opportunity to attend a workshop. | Last October I had the possibility to attend a workshop. | possibilité can mean “opportunity” in French; in German, opportunity and possibility are synonymous in this context. |
| That Mercedes is my dentist's car. | That Mercedes is the car of my dentist. | Possessives are often formed as in Romance languages. |
| current | actual | The English adjective actual has undergone a semantic shift and is often used like English current , as in most European languages . German: aktuell , Dutch: actueel , French: actuel , Romanian / Spanish / Catalan / Galician: actual , Portuguese: atual , Italian: attuale , Czech: aktuální , Polish: aktuellny . |
| possibly | eventually | The English adjective eventual has often been given a wider meaning, cf. . Franz éventuel , German: possibly , Polish ewentualny , Danish eventuelt , Dutch: eventueel . |
| to provide (for) | to foresee | Provide German (for) , French prévoir , Dutch voorzien . |
| We are offering a challenging position in our unit. | We propose a challenging position in our unit. | proposer in French means to offer. |
| What is it called; what do you call it? | How is it called; how do you call it? | Many European languages use “how” rather than “what” in these sentences. German What's it called? Italian Come si chiama? , French Comment ça s'appelle? , Polish Jak to się nazywa? |
| Please enter your PIN code below. | Please introduce your PIN code below. | introduire means “to enter” in French and also in Portuguese with “introduzir” or the Spanish “introducir”. |
| In the end I am staying in France. | Finally I am staying in France. | Finally is usually not used to describe a final decision. |
See also
Web links
- Euro-English , English in the European Union. Teti Musmeci, Marina Foti
- English in the European Union - Worlds of English (2/4) , Open University
Individual evidence
- ^ Sandra Mollin: Euro-English: Assessing Variety Status (= Language in performance . Band 33 ). Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen 2006, ISBN 3-8233-6250-X , p. 6 (English, Zugl .: Freiburg [Breisgau], Univ., Diss., 2005 and d. T .: Sandra Mollin: The institutionalization of Euro-English? ).
- ^ Christian R. Forche: On the emergence of Euro-English as a potential European variety of English - attitudes and interpretations . In: Freie Universität Berlin (ed.): Linguistics . 13, No. 2, November 2012.
- ^ A b c d Richard Nordquist: Euro-English in Language . In: ThoughtCo. . ThoughtCo, a Dotdash brand. March 21, 2017. Accessed July 28, 2018.
- ^ How to Write Clearly. (PDF; 289 kB) (No longer available online.) Directorate-General for Translation, European Commission, archived from the original on May 30, 2009 ; accessed on July 28, 2018 .
- ↑ Jeremy Gardner: A Brief List of Misused English Terms in EU Publications. (PDF; 839 kB) European Court of Auditors Secretariat General Translation Directorate, May 8, 2013, archived from the original on June 18, 2013 ; accessed on November 11, 2019 .