Eurospeak

One of the great things about the EU is its sheer diversity. No more so than in the amazing number of different languages that are spoken. Of course, there are three working languages, French, German, and English, but most documents are translated into all the different languages at an annual cost of around 550m€, or 1.45€ per person. (The total EU budget for 2005 is estimated at 105, 221 M€)

Of course we could just have one language, although that might annoy certain members of the community more than others.

Here's something that was sent to me while ago. I found it amusing, hope you do too.

EEC Instructions on EURO Language

"The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other option.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement.

In the first year, 's' will be used instead of soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivilservants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard 'c' will be replaced with 'k'. Not only will his klear up any konfusion, but typewriters kan haveone less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year,when the troublesome 'ph' will be replaced by 'f'. This will make words like'fotograf' 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted toreach the stage where more komplicated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben adeterent to akurate spelling. Also, al wil agre that the orible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replacing 'th' by'z' and 'w' by 'v'.

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary 'o' kan be droped from vords kontaining 'ou',and similiar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no moretrubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru."