If your planification isn’t up to snuff, you might need to precise your actorness. English in the EU, spoken primarily by non-native speakers, has taken on a life of its own. While “planification” might be jargon unlikely to pop up outside of Brussels, there are also changes afoot in more everyday spoken English in Europe. You might hear a mobile phone referred to as a “Handy”, and be asked to SMS, not text, your friend.
“Actorness” and a multitude of other examples are listed in “Misused English words and expressions in EU publications”, a guide published by European Court of Auditors senior translator Jeremy Gardner. The guide details many of the ways in which European English has gone a bit wibbly – to a native speaker’s ear, at least. In some cases, words like “agent” are deployed in contexts that would sound fine to a US speaker, but odd to the British or Irish ear. And these are precisely the ears that EU documents should be catering to, Gardner argues: “Our publications need to be comprehensible for their target audience … and should therefore follow a standard that reflects usage in the United Kingdom and Ireland.”
Following Brexit, the UK will no longer be able to call these kinds of shots. In a paper published in the journal World Englishes last week, linguist Marko Modiano speculates about what this is likely to mean for the future of English in Europe. He argues that the newfound neutrality of English is likely to help it survive Brexit – and that without the UK’s clout in Europe, European English will be free to do what language does best: change.
The dominance of English as a lingua franca in Europe is startling. It’s spoken as a second language by 38% of adults, trailed distantly by French (12%) and German (11%). This dominance is set to grow dramatically, with 94% of secondary students in Europe learning English as a foreign language. The use of English throughout Asia, the Commonwealth, and North America, plus the widespread use of English online and in the media, all encourage English as the ongoing second language of choice.
Despite this dominance, there have been plenty of rumblings about English being removed as an official language in the EU. It is indeed in a tenuous political position: with the status of English assured by the UK’s membership, Ireland has Gaelic as its official EU language, and Malta has Maltese, leaving English without another representative. It’s not possible to say for sure what the official status of English in the EU will be, although given Ireland’s strong support of its ongoing inclusion, there is a good chance that predictions of its demise are greatly exaggerated.
However, Modiano argues that Brexit will give English a surprise boost, by making it the neutral option. Without the UK’s 60 million native English speakers, the five million native speakers from Ireland and Malta will make up only 1% of the total EU population. This will leave almost everyone else who speaks English in Europe on an equal footing, all using their second language to communicate. Even after losing the UK’s native speakers, the 38% (and growing) who speak English as a second language will make it the most widely-spoken language in Europe: German sits at around 27%, including native and second-language speakers, and French at around 24%.
Even setting aside the question of official status, the daily use of English throughout the continent is unlikely to be diminished. Many countries have invested heavily in learning English, so regardless of official status, expedience is likely to win out: an Italian and a Dane conducting business are still more likely to resort to English than any other language.
The major change, argues Modiano, is that the UK will no longer have a say in how English is used. There will be no chance to exert the kind of influence exhibited by Gardner’s document, pulling the continent’s use of English towards a British English standard. This will leave European English free to drift towards US or Commonwealth conventions, and to develop features of vocabulary and grammar that are perfectly well-understood by other Europeans speaking English as a second language – for example, entrenching the use of structures like “I am coming from Spain,” rather than “I come from Spain”.
There’s a precedent for this kind of language change: the varieties of English spoken around the world in the ex-colonies. Much as standard English has changed its own rules over time (“thou” fell out of vogue quite a while ago, while the grip of “shall” is weakening swiftly), Malaysian English, Indian English, and a multitude of other varieties have developed their own grammars and norms. These varieties aren’t the result of speakers learning British English incompletely—their learning of English is aimed at an entirely different target, and English is often one of their native languages.
Of course, European English will not exist in a vacuum. European speakers will always be communicating cross-culturally, which limits the development of features that would impede understanding when communicating with speakers of other varieties of English. But much as US and British English are different but mutually intelligible, so other varieties can develop their own characteristics without ceasing to be useful. If Modiano is correct, the future of English in Europe might be best secured by Britain relinquishing its grip.