[pompeirules]

> Do you have any references of English actually being phased-out in EU?

It's not clear yet if it will be used in official documents after Brexit agreements will be signed, but UK was the only country who chose English as an official language.

There's an hard requirement in EU to translate every official document in every language spoken in the EU, if English is not an official language, that requirement will cease to exist and slowly there will be no official document in English anymore because it's also a very costly operation.

Unless Ireland or Malta apply for English as primary language.

It's also a political stand, Macron is pushing to use French more and more in the EU institutions.

It doesn't mean that it won't be taught in schools or that it will fade as the most spoken language in EU, it still is by a large margin, but that it will move away from UK English and will become more similar to the English 75% of the > 1 billion English speakers in the World speak as a second language.

Native English speakers not understanding or not being understood by non-native speakers it's already a thing, the gap could widen in the future.

[skissane]

> It's not clear yet if it will be used in official documents after Brexit agreements will be signed, but UK was the only country who chose English as an official language.

The official languages of the EU are set by Council Regulation No 1, which declares English to be an official language. Brexit did not change that regulation in any way; it would take a unanimous vote of the Council of the European Union to amend it, and it is very unlikely that Ireland would vote to remove as an official language the first language of the vast majority of its citizens.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/1958/1(1)/2013-07-01

[polack]

Funny side-note: Sweden never registered Swedish as an official language to the EU because they thought it would be a waste of EU funds to translate all documents to Swedish, since most people there can get along in English.

Then Finland went ahead and ruined it by registering both Finish and Swedish as their official languages (they have a Swedish minority there) :)

[pavlov]

It’s a good story, but Finland and Sweden joined EU at the same time in 1995, so there wouldn’t actually have been a period when Sweden was a member but Swedish wasn’t an official language.

Of course the Swedes would like to blame things on Finland if they can ;)

[flohofwoe]

What language the EU documents are written in is entirely irrelevant for the EU citizens though (they'll get translations anyway). What matters is what people choose as their second language, and I'm pretty sure English is and will remain the most popular choice.

(and the US cultural influence is the main reason for this, the UK doesn't really matter much in that regard since around the 19th century).

[romanoderoma]

Yes and no.

First of all, I'm European.

Use of English as a second language, it might surprise you, dropped in the past 10 years, it was spoken by 52% of the population in 2012, now it dropped to 44%.

Not native speakers, English is the fourth language in Europe for number of native speakers, after German, French and Italian (if we don't count Russian, largely first with 120 million native speakers)

Secondly, things can change rapidly.

20 years ago the most studied second language in Italian schools was French.

Thirdly, in Europe countries have spoken to each other for centuries, when I go to Spain I speak Spanish, when I go to France or Belgium I speak French, I can also speak some German.

Of course not perfectly, but we still understand each other better than through English, because of similarities in the languages.

So yes, second language counts, but only when other options are worse (I speak English with Sweds or Dutch - I've been studying Swedish on my own but my progress with the language have been very slow)

In many schools we study more than 1 foreign language.

I studied French in primary and middle school then English and German in high school.

They were regular public schools, far from the best.

It's quite common elsewhere.

My cousins live in Belgium, their kids study French, Flemish and of course Italian in school.

Many Italian researchers, for example, move to Germany and they learn German because it's better to know it when you live there, English is used to bootstrap the social life and at work.

CERN is in Switzerland and even though I believe everyone there speaks English, in Geneva the official language is French, it helps a lot outside of work to learn it, more than English. Move a few Kms and they speak German, go South and they speak Italian and you will still be in small Switzerland.

Where many people are naturally bi or trilingual.

Adding English as a third/fourth it's very easy for them.

Eventually everybody will learn some English, undoubtedly, but it's gonna be foreigners' English, that it's different from proper English and sometimes it's pure nonsense for native speakers and viceversa.

[mrDmrTmrJ]

As an American, I was surprised by the amount of English education I encountered in European.

Though the places I visited: Sweden, Rome, Greece, Netherlands, France, Spain, Vienna, Ukraine, Berlin all have above average levels.

Do you see the Brexit changing this?

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language_in_Europe

[emptyfile]

Actual map of English proficiency in Europe, you're welcome ;)

https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6Ikp...

[Rick1]

Nope, not at all. The EU has essentially nothing to do with English being spoken Europe. Brexit is a legal matter.

[toyg]

Nah, the amount of English education across Europe is a function of global business and cultural production (Hollywood and the internet). Those will not change even after Brexit.

[romanoderoma]

China is the largest producer of cultural products in the World right now, Hollywood itself made blockbusters there, financed and co produced by China.

It has already changed, before Brexit was even a thing.

From 2013

China is now the lead exporter of cultural goods, followed by the United States. In 2013 the total value of China's cultural exports was US$60.1 billion; more than double that of the United States at US$27.9 billion.