Slashdot Mirror
EU Leader Says English Is Losing Importance (politico.eu)
An anonymous reader writes: Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, opted to deliver a speech in French on Friday morning because he said "English is losing importance" in Europe. He gave the comments, which are unlikely to mend fences after a war of words between Brussels and London over Brexit negotiations, at the "State of the Union" conference in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio -- an annual event for European dignitaries. Juncker said he was opting for French because "slowly but surely English is losing importance in Europe and France has elections this Sunday and I want the French people to understand what I am saying about the importance of the EU." He spoke in English.
What people may not be aware of, is that computer languages, especially HTML and JavaScript will require people who want to enter the IT field to know at least elementary English. The keywords in HTML tags recognized by all browsers around the word are in English, as is the JavaScript language. While there are some interpreters of compiled languages like C++ in other languages (Chinese for C++ examples exists) the more popular languages have English keyword bases. (see like of non-English based computer languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...)
since this is the case, any country wanting "in" on the booming IT industry will have to know some basic English. The English speaking community got the core computer programming/formatting languages out first and as usual, first to publish will have more control it long term.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
You're perhaps right that it makes English less important in the political side of the EU but, as oh_my_080980980 pints out, English will continue to be the language of communication between those who need a common language in the EU as they're not going to magically cease doing business with British businesses or those affiliated with English speaking organizations. I think we can look at the airlines to disprove this chap's point. If you listen to ATC from anywhere in the world it's in English. An Iranian airline flying through Slovakian airspace will communicate with ATC in English, using feet as a measurement unit for altitude. OK, the point about feet is immaterial but it always used to bug me when the Discovery Channel replaced the original narration and translated aircraft altitude into meters, smacked of ignorance and assumption to me.
I've traveled to Taiwan for work five times in the past year, no one expects me to know a word of Mandarin. We're still years away from that becoming a reality.
Let's look at The Numbers:
Number of native English speakers: 500 million
Number of native French speakers: 80 million
Number of 2nd language English speakers: 510B
Number of 2nd language French speakers: 192M
Once the UK leaves, English will be the mother tongue of less than 1% of the EU. It's the Brexiters who are doing the bashing to their own language by reducing its relevancy.
Last summer my wife and I toured the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary. We encountered language barrier issues exactly zero times. Everybody we met - hotel staff, merchants, even random people in the street when we needed directions - understood and spoke English more than adequately for the purpose. Also true to a slightly lesser extent when we visited Amsterdam a few years back. I suspect tourism drives this as much as any other factor. We met a group of people travelling together who were from Sweden, and they spoke English so fluently and accent-free that I was shocked to learn where they were from (I had been guessing Canada).