English to be the official language of the European Union

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petek

petek

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English selected as the official language of the European Union over German
by Volker Weber

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
 
I rarely write zis, but LOL. That one really did make me laugh out loud!

Thanks.
Liam
 
But on the other hand,

Thanks, Pete, that was funny.

Und, vergiß nicht: At least you'd get to use big Letters for Nouns again...

Besides, you really only need to know two sentences in German to live a happy life in Munich:

Noch ein Bier, bitte!

und

oins, zwoa, gsuffa!

Prost!
 
How dreadful and it made me laugh out loud to read it - even me, as a German, hate the new reform of writing, we had last year officially constituted in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and which they forced us to accept without asking us people wether we want it or not!
I personally turned back totally to the time before the first reform in 1901 where they forced the people to write Thür and Thor, Worth und Werth, and other words without the h for the future as well as the c in many latin words like Communication, Combination, Confrontation, circa (today Kommunikation, Kombination, Konfrontation and zirka and Tür and Tor, Wort and Wert) - and nowadays they've forbidden the ph as well as the ß in many words. On top of all they force us to write words which are formed from two words, like Bett-Tuch (bed-sheet), which was formerly written Bettuch and MUST now to be written with a triple t - Betttuch!!!! Disgusting!!!
Last but not least the Delphin became a Delfin, the Telephon a Telefon and the Photograph became a Fotograf - so actually the photographer became a photo-earl as a Graf is an Earl in German and has nothing to do with the ending -graph which is Greek and means -draw/-paint ....ridiculous!
The generation of my grannies had no problems with orthography - sorry, Ortografie - whereas today kids aren't even able to write a short sentence without one or two mistakes in at least! German, once the language of poets and thinkers, has been ripped down to a skeleton of written communication for uneducated people, mostly members of the underclass and foreigners, born from an uncapable school/teacher-system which is unable to cope with a generation of youngsters who need to learn our mother-tongue instead of how to use the down-load function for pics and ring-tones on a mobile phone!

But, Keven, that won't be enough to survive in the rest of Germany...lol! You know, the Prussians do not like the Bavarians and the other way round...!Smile....
Bavaria isn't Germany - both sides use to postulate as often as possible...!! lol

By the way....German is the mostly spoken language in Europe - not English or French!

Cheers, Ralf
 
Use it or lose it!

First Greek, then French, then English.
Will the next universal language be German or Spanish?

Let me tell you how much better my penmanship and spelling became when I went back to college for a second degree/decree in my 30's!

Pehaps the USA should work on an official language. It's time.
 
ah, well -

As my Bavarian relations are fond of saying: You folks in the North may have order and punctuality. We have our Gemütlichkeit.

It is funny, but the only place my friends in Munich would even consider living if they had to leave Munich (i.e.: The earth had opened up and swallowed it.) is Berlin.

And we all know what city has the most Berliner "Dauerbesucher".

Actually, bad as the Falschschreibreform is, we can be thankful here in Germany that Political Correctness has passed up by. Except for a few hysterical PolitikerInnen, our language has pretty much escaped the desecrations to which English (especially in the US) has been subjected over the last 20 years or so.
Here's my list of words I refuse to use, what are your folk's?

"Server" instead of waitress
"Challenged" instead of dumb-as-a-post
"issue" instead of "problem" (that one really grates on my nerves)

Oh, and, yup - I refuse absolutely to write "sss" or "fff" or any of that other nonsense. The Kultusministerkonferenz can just go screw themselves. I still write "kk" instead of "ck" when I split a word and I will be damned before I give up my "ß" in daß and muß.

The last time a nasty hysterical Zicke at our university insisted I use the reform, I demanded she address me with my Title (comes out in German to be Graf von und zu) and full name...all six of them...adding, sweetly and with my very best smile (the one which makes dogs howl and old women faint) "so viel Zeit muß sein, nicht wahr?" (A really untranslatable but thoroughly nasty comment which civil servants hate...and it is not actionable but very very clear in its intent.)

(Of course, to be fair...how much thinking and good poetry has been produced in German since the Nazi's killed or drove off the Jews, the artists and so many gay's? I think our language is dying and these occasional glimmers of warmth and light are just the symptoms of a too high fever in a body beyond hope.)
 
Ow ow try writing in dutch. We will laugh!!
No about that, I have the feeling I watching an episode of 'allo allo' with its beautiful frenchenglish and its germaned english... no that should be the official european language!

 
Hi Charles,

Of course I know the Marstall.
It has been thoroughly renovated and now frequently hosts a wider range of productions than was previously possible.
I have heard some truly horrid "modern" music there consisting of hideousness piled on inability, coupled with arrogance.
Also heard and seen some of the best intimate (not sexual) theater and operetta of my life there.
A neat place and it is neat we could have had you there.
When were you here? What was the production?
 
Hello, Keven!
I decided here and now: we MUST meet!
I absolutely like people with an attitude like yours - we must exchange more ideas than a few words here!
I agree totally with you, my dear! I refuse to accept this new "Schlechtschreibreform" (bad-write-reform in English, isn't it? lol) and I wonder how often other people try to FORCE me - or other people - to do things they do not want (the lady in your case) - I hate that! Who on this planet will think to force me to write in a way, I do not accept for myself? And what, if I resist? Will they bring me to court and put into prison therefore one day? Ridiculous!!

Soviel Zeit muß sein, nicht wahr!?
Hello Peter - the meaning is (more or less):
This time must be for spare, mustn't it?

Cheers, Ralf
 
Is it a criminal offense in Germany when you don't use the official spelling? Here in the Netherlands we have spelling reforms about every five years and each time there are people that oppose the new rules. You are, however, free to write as you prefer. We have no spelling-police! My opinion is that the spelling of a language is just an instrument to convey your thoughts and must be designed to be used by as many people as possible. The minority that sees it as a form of art, well I am afraid that they must make concessions. In many cases it is just the change itself that generate the protests. In Dutch we write "fotograaf" for as long as I know and I have never connected this with a member of the peerage ("graaf" = earl). When a language is used it will evolve and the spelling will evolve too. When I try to read medieval Dutch I find it much harder to understand what is written because of the different words than because of the different spelling.
 
There was a great British series, "The Story of English" which chronicled the development of the English language from its earliest origins. What is clear is that it is a conglomeration of inputs from many languages. Of course it started with a germanic base, but into that were infustions from the Celts and then the Vikings, and then a massive infusion from the Normans (I believe up to 40% of our vocabulary comes from French). In America the development continued, with new words imported from native American languages, and many words from the largest ethnic minority in America - the Germans. So in a way it came full circle in America.

Personally I think that any nation that has to declare an official language, and then starts to dictate what words and spellings are ok for that language, has started in some small way to destroy the very language it sought to preserve. That is, it's a step towards turning it into a "dead" language, like Latin.
 
Interesting translation of the German phrase...I think the US/Canadian phrase that captures the sentiment best would be "you've (or we've if you want a put-down) got a lot of time on your hands" which if you parse it and think about it, is as untranslatable/idiomatic as the German...
 

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