Brexit means … Euro-English?
An academic argues it’s time for the EU to develop its own version of the language of Shakespeare.The mantra of Brexit was “take back control” but the Brits’ departure from Brussels means they risk relinquishing their grip on one of their most precious assets: the English language.
Fed up of kowtowing to the edicts of native speakers, some linguists want the EU to establish non-native English as an official and equally legitimate language alongside what purists would call the “proper” version.
“It’s time for the people in mainland Europe who have English as a second language to determine the future of English for the European Union,” Marko Modiano, a professor of English at the University of Gävle in Sweden, told POLITICO’s EU Confidential podcast.
Modiano proposes that the EU should take the lead in defining and promoting what he calls Euro-English, complete with its own “punctuation, spelling, some grammar, and some vocabulary.”
