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"The European Community has officially become the European Union. This apparently minor development (what's in a name?) with the attendant paraphernalia of citizenship, flag, anthem, proposed single currency etc. indicates that the process of unification has moved beyond the purported economic agenda. A new state is being created. A number of EC/EU politicians have confirmed this, advancing various pacific and not so pacific arguments in its favour. (The European Union is apparently vital both to keep peace in Europe and to square up to the United States.) The British government is the only political body that seems to be unaware of the process and considers the question of name change to be of little importance. [1]

Symbols of state can be and almost invariably are created artificially. But one problem remains. The European Union does not simply consist of 12 (potentially more) disparate political and historical cultures. It lacks the greatest of all unifying factors: a single language. At present there are nine official ones, each nation jealously guarding this privilege. In a recent question submitted to the Commission a Flemish MEP angrily demanded to know why it had seen fit to advertise a position on an EC project in English in a Flemish language newspaper. The Commission's spokesman replied blandly that good knowledge of English was essential for participation in that particular project. On logical and practical grounds he was right. But the Flemish MEP was voicing a concern familiar to all small European nations: if its language falls into disuse the sense of nationhood will collapse. The Commission may welcome this but no-one else, not even an MEP does. Besides, Flemish is an official language and is likely to remain so. What alternatives are there?

Lack of a single language means that the so-called European identity will remain amorphous. The importance of an own language was recognised by the successor republics of the former Soviet Union. The first law each one passed was on the official use of their own national tongue. In a different way the symbolic importance of language was recognised by the state of Israel. It chose to revive Hebrew rather than use Yiddish and Latino, the languages of the ghetto.

In 1929 T.S.Eliot wrote in an essay on Dante: "...modern languages tend to separate abstract thought... " [2]. Political terminology, philosophical ideas, cultural symbols are different in different languages. While Europe, or at least its more or less educated classes, spoke mediaeval Latin and lived by a single set of ides, it was possible to think of it as a unified concept and to project ideas for a state. Whether the disappearance of that concept is to be mourned is hard to say. The fact is that it has disappeared. We do not live by a single set of ideas. Even Christianity has long ago fissured. Above all, we do not speak the same language.

The Union is to be run in nine, possibly more, languages. This makes meetings, negotiations, decisions extraordinarily difficult. Simultaneous or consecutive translations are required with an inevitable loss of time and accuracy. (As one who has worked as an interpreter, I have to add that simultaneous translations tend to be particularly inaccurate.) We accept that in this age of many self- regarding nationalities international negotiations will be conducted through interpreters and the consequent loss of time and accuracy will be taken into account. But what of the psychological problems when an emerging state conducts its affairs in the same way as an international organisation? UN, NATO, SEATO and others do not face these problems, since they do not aim at unification. Nor do they intend to supersede already existing nation states. Can the European Union afford its own multilinguicity?

There is an additional problem. Modern languages separate terminology as well as "abstract thought". Even when words sound the same and have the same root, they do not necessarily mean the same in different languages. Take the vexed term "federalism". To the British is means a centralising tendency that involves the abandonment of their own well-developed political and constitutional institutions and processes. To various other members of the EC with different views of their own national identity, "federalism" is the opposite of "centralism", a move away from the French political model that has dominated the EC and is not popular with everyone, to the German one. Thus not much help to the British who do not want to see the Houses of Parliament turned into a seat of regional government. Or, what about the word "parliament". It is clear that the European Parliament is not what the British or the Danes or even the Germans understand by that expression. It is more like the original "parlement", an assembly or, less politely, a talking shop. Its members come from different political traditions, some completely unparliamentary. Therefore, the word will mean confusingly different things to different people. If the European Union is to become a single state as intended, can it afford such vagueness and imprecision in its basic terminology and institutions? History and common sense (for once in agreement) say "no" to both those questions.

How is the unifying factor of language and linguistic terminology to be produced? In an "old-fashioned" empire one language was imposed by the conqueror (English in India, for example) or by the strongest nation within the emerging unit (English within what eventually became the United Kingdom). The other languages may die out or they may survive as a potential disruptive influence. There may be good political and social reasons for using a language beyond immediate political enforcement. English is still the official language in many of the multilingual ex-colonies. The political basis of the European Union does not allow the forced imposition of one language.

A dominant language can emerge regardless of the political structure. French did in the eighteenth century and English has done in the twentieth. The predominance of English grates on some EC members' sensibilities and it does not reflect the power structure within the new Union. It reminds the most inward looking "federalists" that the rest of the world and the influence of the United States cannot be excluded. It further reminds the British "federalists" uneasily of the existence of the Commonwealth. The power structure within the EC, as intended, ought to have made French, and, as it is turning out, should make German the dominant language. For a number of political and historical reasons English is likely to remain in that position, causing further resentments and difficulties.

Bearing in mind Eliot's comment, perhaps the Commission should allocate some of the £345 million or more it intends to spend on education [3] in order to further the European ideal, to the teaching of mediaeval Latin. Euromoney has been spent on more pointless exercises. There is yet another possible solution: a truly twentieth century one, invented by the Soviet Union and applied increasingly by the European Union. This is the ideological manipulation of language, the creation of a kind of "ur-language" that can be translated into any other tongue. We have already witnessed some of the linguistic-cultural manipulation I refer to. The persistent reference to the European Union or Community as Europe is a good example. It may be a useful form of shorthand but, even more usefully, it creates an entirely wrong idea that is, nevertheless, desirable to the champions of the Union. Another interesting concept is that of "Community" which has gradually replaced the Common Market. A "community" is organic, natural. It is a "feel-good" word and is more appealing than the rather vulgar, money-grubbing "market".

Numerous parallels can be drawn with the Soviet/Communist language which the Russians used to describe as oak language and the French have translated as langue de bois. The nearest English equivalent is the Orwellian newspeak. Under this heading we can place the expressions pro- and anti-European and, indeed, the whole manichean concept, much loved by Marxist theoreticians and politicians, of the world divided into those with us and those against us. Then there are the curious expressions like "European dimension to education meaning presumably pro-EC propaganda; "four freedoms" as something defined by the Treaty of Maastricht; "democracy deficit" - lifted straight from Sovietspeak - to describe a completely undemocratic dirigiste system. "Harmonisation" which means the imposition of rules and regulations that impede economic activity is used to mean a free economy. (One cannot help thinking of "people's democracies".) And what of the famous train that we must not miss on any account? Connoisseurs of such matters will remember the steam train of revolution, though one was invited to drive it or ride shotgun rather than just be a passenger. One can go on drawing parallels. Eurospeak is not simply a good joke. It is an attempt to create a new language with a built-in political meaning, an attempt to manipulate the varied cultures of Europe - its true glory - into a single "European identity" to be defined by the manipulators themselves.

A similar attempt to create a "Soviet identity" failed. It is reasonable to suppose that this one will fail also, though it, too, will inflict damage. Languages and cultures grow, develop and survive within coherent groups. They cannot be imposed successfully for any length of time. And so we are back to the nine official language undermined perhaps by Eurospeak, but surviving despite it and, if historical experience is to be believed, beyond it."

[1] See for example answer given Mr.Heathcoat-Amory to a question put in by Bill Cash MP on 2/12/93 (back to main text)

[2] T.S.Eliot: Selected Essays London 1969 p.239. It has to be remembered that Dante was one of the people who undermined the unity both by his opposition to the Pope's temporal power and, above all, by his use of the Italian language. (back to main text)

[3] See article in The Times Educational Supplement 19/11/93 (back to main text)

This article first appeared in New European, January 1994