Linguae Europaeae

By Victoria Bauer and Zsuzsanna Fagyal-Le Mentec At first glance, the European Union has the most liberal language regime in the world: all twenty-four of its official languages are considered equal and can be used by EU citizens to communicate with their institutions. The EU’s strong commitment to multilingualism holds despite the formidable costs associated with the enormous translation flow. Consider, for instance, that the European Commission's Directorate General reportedly spends over 330 million euros per year on translation ( Translation in the EU ) and the total costs of language services within the Union are estimated to be close to a billion euros. However, EU language regimes are much more constrained than they might appear. Source: Wikipedia In principle, the Council of Europe determines the rules governing language use (Article 342, Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union ), but EU institutions “may stipulate in their rules of procedure which of the la...

by Kirsten Vold Wikipedia Eurovision: where European nations compete through song, dance, costumes, pyrotechnics, and light shows every summer to an audience of over 200 million people worldwide-compared to the 30 million global viewers drawn to the 2016 Rio Olympic opening ceremonies (O’Connell 1). This summertime tradition has reflected not only Europe’s taste in music, but also language. Previous to 1999, countries generally sang in their mother tongues; then a rule change allowed them to choose any language for their entry (Rosell-Aguilar 2). The effect of this change was seen almost immediately, both the percentage of entries and the percentage of winners who performed in English increased dramatically (Eurovision 1). The Eurovision Song Contest was created in 1956 by the European Broadcasting Union to mend and unify the continent after the previous two World Wars. Since then, Eurovision has been a reflection of political and cultural changes in Europe. Each country sends ...