Euro English

Euro English, Euro-English or European English, less commonly known as EU English, Continental English and EU Speak, is a group of dialects of the English language as used in continental Europe, based on common mistranslations and the technical jargon of the European Union (EU) and the native languages of its non-native, English-speaking population. It is mostly used among EU staff, expatriates and migrants from EU countries, young international travellers (such as exchange students in the EU's Erasmus programme) and European diplomats with a lower proficiency in the language.

History

The usage of the English language in Europe progressed through the 19th century, when the British Empire inherited colonies elsewhere in Europe such as Malta, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Menorca, Heligoland, and the Ionian Islands, the latter three in modern-day Spain, Germany, and Greece respectively.

The term "Euro English" was first used by Carstensen in 1986 to denote the adoption of anglicisms in Europe.

The enlargement of the European Union over several decades gradually diluted the influence of two of the EU's working languages (German and French). The development of the Erasmus Programme created a new class of mobile young Europeans who needed a lingua franca to communicate across Europe, and English usually filled that role.

In 2006, Mollin rejected the idea that Euro-English existed as an independent variety of English amongst European academics at the time. According to Forche (2012), 'The question whether the appropriation of English by non-native speakers in Continental Europe is giving rise to a potential European variety of English has not yet been resolved.' In his test group of Erasmus students, Forche found more evidence of Euro-English than Mollin did amongst European academics. Many of the features suggested to be characteristic of Euro-English could be identified as learners' mistakes, although there are some nativisation tendencies. Although these young mobile Europeans had a greater potential to shape a continental norm, they appeared to use English mostly for pragmatic reasons rather than as a language they strongly identified with, and there was still not enough evidence to conclude Euro-English constituted an independent variety.

Euro-English was heavily influenced and dominated by British English, due to the United Kingdom's having been an EU member state between 1973 and 2020. However, the UK's withdrawal in early 2020 means that the EU's scope of native English dialects has been mostly reduced to the varieties of Hiberno-English spoken in the Republic of Ireland; one source believes that this will allow room for Romance languages to have more of an influence on Euro-English. There is also a possibility of a Romance language replacing English. After the UK withdrew from the EU, the Government of France wanted to encourage greater use of French as a working language.

Mannoni (2021) found that both the Euro English as found in European Union law, as well as legal Chinese in Mainland China, were 'hybrid languages'.

Euro English in computers

The Unicode Common Locale Data Repository Project had drafted/defined "en-150" for English in Europe.

EU DGT style guide

The Directorate-General for Translation of the EU has a style guide for the English language to help write clear and readable, regular English. It is based on British English and does not represent a guide for a distinct EU variant of English, merely mentioning EU-specific terminology as a distinguishing feature. The guide recommends avoiding very colloquial British terms. This style guide defines the thousand separator as space or as a comma, and the plural of euro as euro.

Grammar

Conjugation

Non-native English speakers frequently drop the third person singular suffix (-s). For example: he often call meetings.

Speakers of Euro English, in particular those from Eastern Europe, may use the progressive aspect with stative predicates, such as saying I'm coming from Spain instead of I come from Spain. This is atypical in Standard English, but it is permissible in Euro English.

Deixis

A construction that appears with very high frequency in European speakers of English is, for example, Euro English we were five people at the party, as opposed to Standard English there were five people at the party. Such constructions introduce a type of mandatory "clusivity" to the English language, in which the speaker always signifies whether they are a part of some bigger group.

Euro English also features slightly more frequent usage of the indefinite personal pronoun one, such as in one can protect one's country. This mirrors the more frequent usage of such pronouns in European languages, but is also sometimes used as third-person reflexive pronouns, such as with French on and se, Scandinavian sig and sin, German man and sich, etc.

Inflection

Some words are given a plural with a final "s" in Euro-English, such as informations and competences, to match similar words in European languages (such as informations and compétences in French), while this pluralisation is ungrammatical in British or American English.

Register

It is extremely frequent among European speakers of English to prefer the singular they in formal contexts, whereas native English speakers in the US and UK have historically considered it an informal colloquialism. This mirrors the usage of "singular plurals", in terms of levels of formality, in European languages, such as French vous, German Sie, older Spanish vos, Danish and Norwegian De, even though all of these examples are strictly used in the second person.

Vocabulary

The English plural of the word euro was first defined as euro without a final s, before becoming euros with a final s.

See also

• African English
• English as a lingua franca
• Glossary of European Union concepts, acronyms, and jargon
• International English

References

Bibliography

• Forche, Christian R. (2012). "On the emergence of Euro-English as a potential European variety of English – attitudes and interpretations". Jezikoslovlje. 23 (2): 447–478.
• Mannoni, Michele (2021). "Rights Metaphors Across Hybrid Legal Languages, Such as Euro English and Legal Chinese". International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. 34 (5). International Association for the Semiotics of Law: 1375–1399. doi:10.1007/s11196-020-09814-6. PMC 8019294. PMID 33840914.
• Mollin, Sandra (2006). Euro-English: Assessing Variety Status. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. p. 6. ISBN 382336250X.

Further reading

• English in the European Union – Worlds of English (2/4), Open University
• S.D. (30 September 2011). "Euro-English: Blasting the bombast". The Economist. London.
• Ramsay, Anne (2001). Eurojargon: A Dictionary of the European Union. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers.
• Hans, Biró (2005). Englisch für die EU : Spezialwörterbuch für Steuern, Verwaltung und Wirtschaft (2., überarbeitete und erweiterte ed.). LexisNexis. ISBN 3-7007-3213-9.