As Europe Seeks A Stronger Voice, Words Get in Way
As an Indian I am used to living with multiple languages in all areas of life. But we always knew that we need to know only 2 languages (Hindi & English) to get our work done anywhere in the country.
In an attempt to be fair and accommodating, EU seems to be intent on saving the bathwater, while throwing the baby of Common Market out! While people and economies everywhere work towards reducing friction in social interactions, EU would have spent more than $1.5 billions on translation and interpretation in last year. If this number does not include the costs incurred by businesses across Europe to translate documents, packaging and manuals to market in EU zone, then the total cost of working with multiple languages can be truly staggering!
EU officials discussed a more streamlined approach to their language problem ahead of the May expansion. They debated using only three official languages, or even just one: English, Latin, or Esperanto -- a 118-year-old language created by a Polish eye doctor that now has an estimated 100,000 fluent speakers world-wide. But members finally stuck with treating all the languages equally. "The less-bad solution was multilingualism," says Olga Cosmidou, director of the EU's interpretation service.
Less-bad solution? Esperanto?? (no wonder the proposal got rejected!)
"We will never catch up to the U.S. if we go on like this," says Martin van der Mandele, president of RAND Europe, a think tank that is part of Santa Monica, Calif.-based RAND Corp. "The European Union has become decidedly less easy to work with because of language issues."
Tell me about it. As a small business, we face this hidden cost every day as we try to market our products across Europe. Last year we spent more than $25000 in translations alone.
Now as EU expands, it will get tougher for us. The number of language pairings required in public arena will grow from current 380 to more than 500 in the next 3 years as more countries join EU.
Common Market anyone?
Please see the Personal EU concept
http://www.takapiru.fi/Personal_EU/Personal_EU_blog/personal_eu_blog.html
Comments?
kurt.linderoos@unitedbrains.biz
Posted by: Kurt Linderoos | 24 February 2005 at 10:03