Language Matters

There was a widely reported story that the EU's Brexit negotiator was going to insist on carrying out the negotiations over the departure of the UK in French.  As with so much to do with the EU, this was made up in Fleet Street.  But the reason it was a big story is that language matters.  Bismarck, who knew a thing or two about power, once said that the most significant development in the nineteenth century was that English became the dominant language of the North American continent.  He may well have said it through gritted teeth.


Germans provided the United States with plenty of manpower and brainpower and made a big contribution to its development.  Their DNA is still there, but precious little in the way of cultural influence aside from a few names of foods.  The US is a superpower in lots of ways, and its soft power is a big part of that.  And the English language is a big part of its soft power.   The UK benefits from that as well.  And it also contributes by keeping up the importance of English as a European language as well as a world one.

So if Brexit happens and it becomes permanent, it is inevitable that this will reduce the influence of English as a language.  It will cease to be one of the three big languages of the community and will probably be dropped as one of the official languages.  No doubt there will be some self conscious reinforcing of this in the short term by European officials who want to make a point.  And equally it will not be easy to displace it as a lingua franca for Europeans who wish to communicate with one another.  But in the long run the UK leaving the EU will to some extent weaken English even if it remains very strong.   Even now in the course of my business I from time to time find my knowledge of French comes in handy.  Not every EU related document is automatically translated.  I am thinking that I should perhaps pay more attention to keeping my vocabulary in French up if EU directives aren't going to come out officially in English in the near future.

Nothing is going to happen overnight, and indeed nothing noticeable may happen for decades.  But it could be that looking back historians of future centuries might point to the effect of Brexit on the use of English as the most important.