English is the EU's lingua franca

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While Britain may not be one of the EU's founding members, English is emerging as the union's common language, much to the chagrin of France, writes the Taipe Times.

According to the article, one side effect of the EU expansion and the growing number of official languages is that English is emerging increasingly as the EU's lingua franca, much to the chagrin of the French, once the guardians of the group's foremost tongue.

"The weight of English grows each year," Nicolas de la Grandville, the spokesman for the French permanent delegation, is cited.

The cost for maintaining the official multilingual communication is immense: the EU budgets US$ 1.3 billion (EUR 1,000m) annually and employs about 3,000 linguists.

With the costs rising and documentation growing one may argue that the EU linguistically needs to come to a rest. A long these lines EU commissioner Charlie McGreevy pleads for a uniform patent system, requiring only one language.

While the bureaucratic hurdles for a European Patent System are still high, one may expect, that once it is established most patents will be applied for in English only considering the great advantage of a common language in the main markets of North America and Europe.

Source TaipeTimes.com

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