Intermezzo

Begin intermezzo

Okay, I promised not to blog here for 2-3 weeks and so take this as a little intermezzo - but this successful experiment we have started at Bloggingportal.eu (where I am a co-editor) is just too nice not to be mentioned here.

End intermezzo

English is great. J'adore le français. Deutsch ist toll. So what?

This is an answer to Jean Quatremer who titled "L'Union dont "l'espéranto" est l'anglais" ('The Union whose Esperanto is English').

First: Take a look at Germany's song for the Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo. We don't have a problem sending someone* who doesn't sing in our own language. If we like the person. And the music.

Second: Below you see the current number one of the German music charts, a Belgian singing in French. Germans don't mind buying French music. If they like the person. And the music.



Third, we can celebrate the opening of the European Capital of Culture of Essen with a German song sang by a great German star. We don't mind listening to German music. If we like the person. And the music.



What I want to say: You can give easy answers to difficult questions. But why not being pragmatic and using the languages that we want to use to communicate, depending on the occasion, our abilities, our means, our moods, on our counterparts?

Just because English is the easiest and most pragmatic choice in many European situations, we won't forget that English is not everything.

* By the way: The grandfather of Lena Meyer-Landrut, the German Eurovision representative in Oslo, was a German ambassador to the Soviet Union. He studied Slavonic philology.

Why I am Euroblogging in English

I started to write a blog post in German, and then I erased everything because it didn't sound right.

The reason I even though about blogging in German was this request by Europaeum yesterday:

Außerdem wünsche ich mir von den vielen Euroblogs noch mehr Mut, auch in der eigenen Sprache zu bloggen und damit die Euroblubble wenigstens ein Wenig aufzustechen.

For those not familiar with German: Europaeum is hoping for a little more courage by eurobloggers to blog in their mother tongue in oder to puncture the eurobubble.

What I realised is that for me, part of the Euroblogging experience is writing in a foreign language.

It is leaving the national thought system and entering into a mindset that has been shaped through so many European experiences, most of them connected with speaking English. English is also the language I read and write the most in my scientific work. Changing into English thus means to think more analytically and to feel more cosmopolitan at the same time - and both are constitutive parts of this euroblog.

So while I understand that Euroblogging needs to go national, it wouldn't work out for me.

I am ready to connect to the national blogosphere(s) through any possible channel, I am ready to read blog posts in as many languages as I can read or that Google Translate is able to handle, but I don't feel comfortable euroblogging in German.

And to be honest, I am personally convinced that euroblogging in English makes sense at this development stage of the Euroblogosphere: With only a limited number of blogs, there is the need to be able to interact easily and quickly, to be able to grasp the other's argument and to turn it into real debates.

I agree that this doesn't really happen in the Euroblogosphere so far. But if all of us were writing in our own national language, there would be even less possibility for debate, because we would miss many interesting points other are writing about (since we definitely wouldn't translate every post not written in a language we understand).

So don't expect me changing languages in this blog - it's English and it'll stay this way.

Chasing Brussels Podcast Episode 009: Language & The Euroblogosphere

Right after our recent Eurobloggers' meet-up - see the report by Joe Litobarski - we recorded the next episode of the Chasing Brussels Podcast.

This week, Joe Litobarski is joined by Conor Slowey, Julien Frisch, Jon Worth, Matthew Lowryand Frank Schnittger to talk about the problem of the language barrier in European blogging.

The debate follows on from the recent euroblog meet-up that was arranged around the same topic. So, what can be done to solve the language problem in the euroblogging? Some sort of voluntary effort to translate blogs? Would EU funding set off the eurosceptics and make it look like a conspiracy? Or will Google translate solve all our problems.

All this and more in this week’s podcast.

And here's the podcast: Chasing Brussels 09 – Language & Euroblogs

A comparision of India's parliament with the European Parliament

You can always find counter-arguments in comparisons like this one between the Indian parliament and the European Parliament made by Tobias at the EUobserver blogs, but it is still a nice confrontation of what can be and what is.

Have a read!

European communication (II)

On Friday, I remarked that European communication can still be improved.

Today, EUobserver reports that the Dutch social scientist Abram de Swaan is calling the EU's multilingualism policy "a pain in the neck". These remarks come on the eve of the presentation of the multilingualism policy by EU Commissioner Leonard Orban.

Actually, I am surprised that this comes up only now. During a conference in Summer 2007, I have already been discussing with Mr. Orban about the multilingualism strategy. At the time, I was critising especially the strong weight of economic considerations for multilingualism, which Orban rejected.

However, multilingualism is not a pain in the neck (or in other parts of the body). It is a pain in the neck in administrative terms, but the ability of eurocrats and transnational bureaucrats and politicians to communicate directly with non-multilingual populations is the only possibility for a European democracy to evolve.

English should become the sole language of inter-administrative communication, but remaining on such a self-referencial level is exactly the problem of Europe today. If I cannot communicate with my Polish neighbour about her problems, how can I work on improving her living conditions? If I want to implement a human rights policy, how do I explain it to a local Spanish police officer?

Multilingualism might be a pain in the neck, but it is a necessary pain for everyone taking the European project seriously. Let's not opt for seemingly simple solutions when complexity demands much more!