Brexit and the English Language

Brexit and the English Language

On Jun 23rd 2016, a referendum is being held to decide whether the UK should leave or remain in the EU. A lot has been said about the consequences that might happen, on topics such as Economy, Politics, Freedom of Movement, Social Benefits and Human Rights, if Britain votes to leave the European Union. A brief search on Google reveals that there were also some exercises trying to visualize what would happen with the status of the English Language in the EU.

Some articles suggest that there might be a decline in the use of the English language among the members of the EU. Other articles, suggest that Europe will continue to speak English after Brexit.

First, it is important to highlight that English will not cease to be one of the 24 Official Languages of the EU. Although Britain is the country of origin of most of English speakers within the Union, is not the only country where English is the National Language. Ireland and Malta also use English as their national language.

Most of EU largest trading partners use English as their business language. The largest trading Partner is the USA. Among the 10 largest trading partners of the EU we can find China, Turkey, Norway, Japan, South Korea and India, all of them use mainly English for Business.

The Use of English as a second language is a very strong trend in some Areas of the EU. The enlargement of 2004 attracted to the EU an important list of new countries whose population tend to have English as their main language for intercommunication.   German and French, the other strong languages widely used in the Headquarters of the European institutions have not such popularity in Eastern Europe.

However, the publications related with this topic, have some interesting points to make about possible consequences of Brexit to the use of English Language in the EU.

In an article published by Quartz (Qz.com) called “The English language could get really weird if Britain leaves the EU”, writes about the rise of a more Eurocentric English Language in the EU Headquarters.  Examples are shown of some terms already in use in the corridors of Brussels, differing in meaning with the same words used by English speakers from other parts of the world.

It is expected that Brexit will be a threat to English language Schools in the UK, at the time EU students have less incentives to learn this language and the UK may not be as open as it is today.

According to Euobserver, 13% of EU Citizens are now Native English Speakers. Most of them are British Citizens. If they cease to be EU citizens, this percentage will be less than 1%. However, outside the demographic consequences of this, does not seem that Europe will cease to use English in their everyday communications and in the Business.