Last week, in the latest bitch-fight between Jean-Claude Juncker and Teresa May, Juncker made a speech in French, making a point by prefacing it by saying that "English is losing importance in Europe(sic)." (He meant the EU: he wasn't talking about, say, Belarus, I assume.
No, it is not, not currently. Not where I am.
It is an absurd statement. German and Russian have gained a bit of importance in the past decade or so, it’s true. But there is actually more demand for English than ever. Brexit or petty nationalism or EU rhetoric has nothing to do with this.
It’s about communication.
People are not going to stop learning English all at once in some sort of huff against the British. Most of my clients who learn English do not even communicate with native speakers anyway: they use English to talk to Hungarians, to Chinese, to Polish, to Germans, to French, to Scandinavians, to Russians, even. It has nothing to do with the UK: people are not learning English so that they can become little Englishmen or Americans. They don’t learn English because of us.
Juncker’s statements are petty and incredibly out of touch with the way most people think about the English language in Europe, at least in the part of Europe where I am. Maybe in Brussels, where knowledge of French is high, it’s different. But, you know what? No one cares about Brussels.
In fact, people like Juncker and the rest of those idiots in Brussels don’t really get what the EU is all about: they believe their own cloying, gag-inducing rhetoric.
At base the European Union is practical. That is why it works.
If in the future another language becomes the lingua franca in Europe it will be German or Russian, or both.
I can only assume Juncker’s words are primarily aimed at pissing off the British public in preparation for the UK election. He’d probably had a tipple too many. Yeah, like that is going to work out in his favor.
Clever, Juncker. Keep drinkin’.
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