Euro English

Euro English
European English
English
Native to	European Union European Free Trade Association
Region	Europe
Ethnicity	Europeans
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Ingvaeonic Anglo-Frisian Anglic English International English European English Jargon of the Institutions of the European Union and of the European Free Trade Association Euro English
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Germanic Proto-West Germanic Proto-English Old English Middle English Early Modern English Modern English
Dialects	Glossary of European Union concepts, acronyms, and jargon
Writing system	Latin (English alphabet) Unified English Braille
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
ELP	Template:Endangered Languages Project
Linguasphere	Template:Infobox language/lingualist
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IETF	en-EU

Euro English, Euro-English, or European English, less commonly known as EU English, Continental English, and EU Speak, is a group of dialects of the English language and a form of International English as used in Europe based on common lexical and grammatical mistranslations influenced by the native languages of its non-native English-speaking population mostly built on the technical jargon of the European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). It is mostly used among EU staff, EFTA staff, expatriates and migrants from EU and EFTA countries, global nomads and young international travelers such as international students in the EU's Erasmus Programme, as well as European diplomats with a lower proficiency in English inclusive of both Standard English and non-standard native speaker dialects of English.

History

The usage of the English language in other parts of Europe spread through the 19th century, when the British Empire inherited colonies elsewhere in Europe such as Malta, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Menorca, Heligoland, and the Ionian Islands, the latter three in modern-day Spain, Germany, and Greece respectively.

The term "Euro English" was first used by Carstensen in 1986 to denote the adoption of anglicisms in Europe.

The enlargement of the European Union over several decades gradually diluted the influence of two of the EU's other non-English working languages of German and French. The use of English in European Union institutions and the European Free Trade Association, the development of European Union law as identified in the "Glossary of European Union concepts, acronyms, and jargon," the integration of international business and trade practices among member states, the influence of the Legal English and Business English registers, and the increased mistranslation and coinage of technical, legal, international business, international relations, and public policy jargon by non-native speakers of English has led to the development of Euro English. The development of the international student exchange Erasmus Programme, an open borders travel policy establishing the Schengen Area, and the establishment of a customs union created a new class of mobile young people in Europe who needed a lingua franca to communicate across Europe, and English usually filled that role.

In 2006, Mollin rejected the idea that Euro-English existed as an independent variety of English amongst European academics at the time. According to Forche (2012), 'The question whether the appropriation of English by non-native speakers in Continental Europe is giving rise to a potential European variety of English has not yet been resolved.' In his test group of Erasmus students, Forche found more evidence of Euro-English than Mollin did amongst European academics. Many of the features suggested to be characteristic of Euro-English could be identified as learners' mistakes, although there are some nativisation tendencies. Although these young mobile Europeans had a greater potential to shape a continental norm, they appeared to use English mostly for pragmatic reasons rather than as a language they strongly identified with, and there was still not enough evidence to conclude Euro-English constituted an independent variety.

Euro-English was heavily influenced and dominated by British English, due to the United Kingdom's having been an EU member state between 1973 and 2020. However, the UK's withdrawal in early 2020 means that the EU's scope of native English dialects has been mostly reduced to the varieties of Hiberno-English spoken in the Republic of Ireland; one source believes that this will allow room for Romance languages to have more of an influence on Euro-English. There is also a possibility of a Romance language replacing English. After the UK withdrew from the EU, the Government of France wanted to encourage greater use of French as a working language.

Mannoni (2021) found that both the Euro English as found in European Union law, as well as legal Chinese in Mainland China, were 'hybrid languages'.

Style guides

European Union and the European Free Trade Association

• English Style Guide: "A handbook for authors and translators in the European Commission" – executive branch of the European Union.
• Interinstitutional Style Guide -- used across several institutions of the European Union, European Economic Area, and the European Free Trade Association.

Council of Europe

• Council of Europe - English Style Guide, by the Council of Europe

Euro English in computers

The Unicode Common Locale Data Repository Project had drafted/defined "en-150" for English in Europe.

Grammar

"English is widely used on the European continent as an international language. Frequently conferences are conducted in English (and their proceedings published in English) when only a few of the participants are native speakers. At such conferences the English spoken often shows features at variance with the English of England but shared by the other speakers. Continental meanings of and , continental uses of tenses, calques on French formulas of conference procedure, various details of pronunciation, and dozens of other features mark the English as an emerging continental norm. Native speakers attending the conference may find themselves using some of these features as the verbal interaction takes place."

— Charles A. Ferguson (1992)

Conjugation

Non-native English speakers frequently drop the third person singular suffix (-s). For example: he often call meetings.

Speakers of Euro English, in particular those from Eastern Europe, may use the progressive aspect with stative predicates, such as saying instead of I come from Spain. This is atypical in Standard English, but it is permissible in Euro English.

Deixis

A construction that appears with very high frequency in European speakers of English is, for example, Euro English , as opposed to Standard English there were five people at the party. Such constructions introduce a type of mandatory "clusivity" to the English language, in which the speaker always signifies whether they are a part of some bigger group.

Euro English also features slightly more frequent usage of the indefinite personal pronoun one, such as in . This mirrors the more frequent usage of such pronouns in European languages, but is also sometimes used as third-person reflexive pronouns, such as with French and , Scandinavian sig and sin, German and , etc.

Inflection

Some words are given a plural with a final "s" in Euro-English, such as and , to match similar words in European languages (such as and in French), while this pluralisation is ungrammatical in British or American English.

Register

It is extremely frequent among European speakers of English to prefer the singular they in formal contexts, whereas native English speakers in the US and UK have historically considered it an informal colloquialism. This mirrors the usage of "singular plurals", in terms of levels of formality, in European languages, such as French , German , older Spanish , Danish and Norwegian , even though all of these examples are strictly used in the second person.

Vocabulary

Standard English	Euro English	Origin
possible	eventual
agent, operator	actor
to encourage	to incite
opportunity	possibility
to monitor	to control
what is it called?	how is it called?
billion	milliard
trillion	billion
private investigator	detective
current	actual	The English adjective actual has undergone semantic shift and is now a false friend (cf. cognates in German , Dutch , French , Romanian/Spanish/Catalan/Galician , Portuguese , Italian , Czech , Polish ).
to plan for	to foresee	From French .
condition	conditionality
six months	semester
office	cabinet
deadline	delay	From French , meaning "time limit, deadline; waiting period".
planning	planification	In imitation of a Romance language; compare French , Spanish .
to skip, to refrain from	to hop over	Calqued from Swedish .
to be naive	to be blue-eyed	Used in Nordic countries (and is understood by German speakers).
to overcharge	to salt
to specify, to outline	to precise	From French and other Romance influence.

See also

• British English
• English as a lingua franca
• Glossary of European Union concepts, acronyms, and jargon
• International English
• African English
• Indian English
• American English

Bibliography

• Forche, Christian R. (2012). "On the emergence of Euro-English as a potential European variety of English – attitudes and interpretations". Jezikoslovlje. 23 (2): 447–478.
• Mannoni, Michele (2021). "Rights Metaphors Across Hybrid Legal Languages, Such as Euro English and Legal Chinese". International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. 34 (5). International Association for the Semiotics of Law: 1375–1399. doi:10.1007/s11196-020-09814-6. PMC 8019294. PMID 33840914.
• Mollin, Sandra (2006). Euro-English: Assessing Variety Status. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. p. 6. ISBN 382336250X.

Further reading

• English in the European Union – Worlds of English (2/4), Open University
• S.D. (30 September 2011). "Euro-English: Blasting the bombast". The Economist. London.
• Ramsay, Anne (2001). Eurojargon: A Dictionary of the European Union. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers.
• Hans, Biró (2005). Englisch für die EU : Spezialwörterbuch für Steuern, Verwaltung und Wirtschaft (2., überarbeitete und erweiterte ed.). LexisNexis. ISBN 3-7007-3213-9.