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An Ad Translation Contract. A Standards-based Model Solution Uwe Muegge

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Walter R. Hunziker yesterday published a scenario describing how the language barriers in Europe could be overcome. In his article, published on the Newropeans Magazine Website, he describes a European Communication Concept to be adopted by The European Communications Committee "ECC" making English the (only) official language in Europe and implementing a 5-year plan to simplify the language into a new language to be known as "EURENGLISH".

Hunziker's rather funny scenario proposes the replacement of the soft "c" an the "th" with "s": sertainly zis will make sivil servants jump wiz joy, zen the hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". Zis should klear up konfusion, and keyboards have one less letter.

In futher steps "ph" will be abolished in favour of "f" as well as "w" with "v", and "o" should be dropped in "ou", for "Zer vil be no more trubl or difikultis and al Uropens vil find it ezi to understand ech oza and ze drem of a united Urop vil finali kum tru and ve vil rul ze vorld "

French witch Fleur Delaceur in Joanne K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels would be delighted.

Hunziker's article however is more than a joke. Instead he pleads in favour of a European Communication Concept "in order to prevent the above scenario from happening." This complex process is already happening everywhere , he writes, "While our EU politicians in Brussels meet, talk, translate and pile up thousands of documents and reports concerning many border problems that will soon be forgotten, our young generation is sending millions of sms, is blogging and thatching and exchanging ideas and plans, is dating and flirting, mixing and living across borders that for them are no longer real. Their messages are already using new words, a new type of grammar and pictograms which the older generation is unable to comprehend. This new vocabulary is a chaotic mix resulting from often failing education and local immigration patterns, popular hit songs, etc."

The current translation and interpretation policy of the EU is creating piles of records and documents in all present languages, and apart from the communication industry nobody is profiting from this. "It is obvious that there are limits to what is practical. We cannot have all texts in all languages available, everywhere and at once .. A paper in four languages is a bore. Technical instruction manuals in 25 languages are a pain and , usually full of mistakes. Contracts between partners of really different languages like German and Chinese are a source of continuous misinterpretation. We will have to search for a common denominator, understandable for all partners."

ESPERANTO failed and would never succeed in today's global world, Hunziker says, and ENGLISH, apart from being a currently favoured international language, cannot serve as a lingua franca, either, because "strong arguments for protecting regional spoken languages and cultures from English supremacy demand a better, more efficient, independent and generally acceptable global communication pattern."

Instead, Hunziker favours a Star-Trek-like universal translator transplanted into the human ear (doesn't that ring a bell?), based on Nano-technology, which will recognize any language and instantly translate it into selected personally known languages. He considers such a solution not too far from reality, "for our youngsters already walk around half the time with earphones listening to ever louder so-called music, and so are many elderly people who depend more and more on hearing devices, as their ears have been strained by our civilization's noise excesses. The time is coming when everybody will wear hearing devices. This will take care of all translation and recording needs of both the EU and the entire world community. Obviously there will be no need for a universal language and we can therefore save the cultural identity of each nation, region or locality."

Growing global interaction is increasing the need for a comprehensive global communication system that will combine in a single device all the needed functions: telephone, radio, recording, translation, photo, video, sound reproduction, SMS, internet messages and texts, etc. As Hunziker says, prototypes of the required technologies have already been developed for military use. "We now need an individual civil version, practical, small, light, ergonomic and beautiful. We may be inspired by existing equipment such as wristwatches or glasses, which could easily contain the needed additional functions."

Read the article: Newropeans Magazine