Language in a European Federation?

[SvoHljott]

Following on from my last thread in which a different history from 1933 onward leads to a more devastating World War 2 and worse tensions between Communism and the West, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, the Low Countries, Switzerland and Liechtenstein form a federal republic.

My question is (ignore the plausibility of my scenario), obviously the three largest languages in such a state would be French, Germany and Italian. As France was the victorious allied nation in WW2 whilst Germany and Italy were the defeated Axis, French becomes the lingua franca and the political language of the Federation.

But how long would the linguistic divide in such a Federation last? How many decades would it take to have everyone in the Federation speak the same language at least as a second language? Would other languages slowly be phased out?

Alternatively, would they merge their languages together into a new one to appease all the citizens?

Thanks for your answers!

 

[nixonshead]

As a second language, I suspect French would be taken up very quickly (it was already an important diplomatic and cultural language, after all). I can't see it being adopted as the sole language for centuries, if ever, unless there's some kind of political crackdown similar to Franco's efforts to squash Catalan (which didn't work) or the various French and English efforts to remove Breten, Lange d'Oc, Welsh, Irish and various other minority languages (slightly more successful, but over very long periods of time).

I'd say give it 20 years and French in your Federation would be about as widespread as English in the EU today, with about 80% of citizens able to understand to at least to a basic level.

 

[Neala]

It will take a very long time

Take Britain as an example - up until the mid-20th Century there were active efforts to surpress non-english languages in the British Isles. Despite this Scots, Gaelic, Welsh and Irish have survived, indeed they are still first languages for varying numbers of people. This is despite at least 300 years of active attempts to replace them with English (far more for Welsh)

Even then, you will see elements of the old languages surviving for millenia after the languages proper have died out. For instance, up until very recently (last 30 years or so) some rural areas of England made use of traditional, apparently nonsensical, counting rhymes. When analysed these proved to be descendents of the old welsh numbering system

 

[Devvy]

I'd say give it 20 years and French in your Federation would be about as widespread as English in the EU today, with about 80% of citizens able to understand to at least to a basic level.

You'd be surprised.

51% of EU population can speak English apparently (13% natively, 38% as a foreign language). Only 25% know it well enough to be able to follow a news broadcast apparently (which means 12% of non UK/IE people).

It's highly skewed from the UK and the Netherlands & Nordic's general excellent grasp of English, against the larger populations of southern and eastern Europe who don't speak English as well in the mass population.

 

[Vnix]

You'd be surprised.

51% of EU population can speak English apparently (13% natively, 38% as a foreign language). Only 25% know it well enough to be able to follow a news broadcast apparently (which means 12% of non UK/IE people).

It's highly skewed from the UK and the Netherlands & Nordic's general excellent grasp of English, against the larger populations of southern and eastern Europe who don't speak English as well in the mass population.

even in Germany other than the large cities and even then English is not as widely grasped as in the Netherlands.

 

[Legend-in-Exile]

Well I can't see many people being overjoyed at French being thrust upon them. So why not have 2 official languages of government, and recognition of all others in terms of documents available translated into all of them?

By having only French you limit the ability of others to participate in government. Which turns it into a French Empire, something not altogether popular.

As to language merger, look at Belgium. French was the prestige language of government etc, and Flemish was looked down upon. Flemish neither fell into disuse nor merged with French.

Any union that tried to enforce French would not last too long.

At least in my opinion.

 

[Lalli]

I don't see that French could expand as first language of all citizens of EF. French and perhaps German and Italian are administrative languages but every state has its own official first language. But it not work that French try enforce all use French. That kind of attempts never end well.

 

[feastguy101]

You'd be surprised.

51% of EU population can speak English apparently (13% natively, 38% as a foreign language). Only 25% know it well enough to be able to follow a news broadcast apparently (which means 12% of non UK/IE people).

It's highly skewed from the UK and the Netherlands & Nordic's general excellent grasp of English, against the larger populations of southern and eastern Europe who don't speak English as well in the mass population.

That doesn't look right to me... I live in Portugal and most people under 35 can speak English. If I had to guess, I'd say it's more of a generational gap.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

If you have an alt-eu like you're suggesting, it's going to have to be a French Empire for French to be the official language. No way are Germans or Italians going to accept that unless they're being held down by French troops - and France cant afford that.

Having multiple 'official' languages (and you really need to include Dutch, and any other national language) is going to be rquired, as in todays eu, or its just not going to fly. Oh. Unless they pick Esperanto as a Gordian Knot slicer.