On Babel of languages

According to Joe L. Spartz (Dec. 21, 1999: European Union enlargement: A Euro Babel in waiting?) the Babel of languages that the enlarged European Union is expected to become in the near future may well "turn out to be the grain of sand that will bring its engine to a standstill". It does indeed look like it.

Yet, as Mrs. C. Flesh, chairwoman of the Board of EU's Luxembourg-based Translation Center wrote recently in her preface to the 1998 Activity Report of that Center, the European Institutions themselves are clearly determined to uphold the multilingual principle which has prevailed until now. The current EU membership of 15 nations commonly uses 11 official working languages, which are combined daily for translation in 55 different ways. In comparison, the United Nations uses only five official languages, which in turn give rise to 10 combinations.

Should the future membership rise, to say 30 -- as widely expected -- the resulting language combination would reach the ludicrous number of 407, even if we assume that Cyprus will be happy to use Greek and Turkish! Unless it is harnessed before it is too late, it is obvious that the uncontrolled growth of this activity will require many tens of thousands of additional translators and support staff. They will generate many more tons of mostly unwanted documents at a tremendous cost for taxpayers and further add to the EU's already proverbial bureaucracy.

This clearly is good news for existing and aspiring members of the often neglected profession of translator. However, it is doubtful that the populations of the enlarged United States of Europe will ever derive any real benefit from that the Jurassic principle of linguistic equality, considering that people everywhere already have chosen English as the lingua franca of international business, travel, information and sciences.

Nevertheless, should English really not be enough, surely the addition of French, German and either Spanish or Italian would satisfy most Europeans, would it not? Or have my fellow Europeans remained so stubbornly parochial?

J. PAUL BRAIBANT

Jakarta