ABOUT EU's 24 OFFICIAL LANGUAGES


I have been asked, why the EU has so many OFFICIAL LANGUAGES.  Is that really necessary?
It is correct that the number of official languages seems to be high.  Today the figure is 24. When the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark joined in 1973 the number of languages increased from 4 to 6.  And what does it mean that a language is an official EU language? It means that it in principle is possible to speak in any of those languages in official EU meetings ( in the European Parliament, in the European Council, in the Council of Ministers, in the EU Court of Justice, in the Committee of the Regions, in the European Economic and Social Committee, etc. ).  And that what you say will be interpreted instantaneously into each of the other 23 languages.   It also means that all official EU documents exist in all 24 languages.
The 24 official languages are most of the official languages in the 27 member states. When I write “most of” I refer to Luxembourg, where its third official language, Lëtseburgish, is not an official EU language. And some official regional languages like Catalan is not an official EU language either.  But why is English still an official language after the UK left the EU?  Because English is an official language in three of the 27 EU countries:  Ireland, Cyprus and Malta.

You have an overview of all 24 official languages on this link – and you may also listen to how each of them sounds:
https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/eu-languages_en


It is expensive – yes!  It has once been calculated, that if the EU decided only to use ONE language, you could reduce the staff with 33%.    But remember this:  Democracy costs money!

Why is it so important to have all these official languages?  Why is it in particular important seen from a democratic point of view?
Because the member states through the EU Treaties have decided that the EU has the competence and task to make binding laws of direct importance to the individual citizen, the individual company, the individual countries, etc.   So, it is of crucial importance that these laws are written – and prepared – in languages, which everybody can understand. Any other way would be a breach of the rights, which EU has been created to defend and improve.
When I in the 1970ies and 1980ies was head of the Commission’s office in Denmark I was also responsible for EU information in the other Nordic countries ( until EU Delegations were started in each of their capitals ).  Once I was at a meeting in Stockholm with the local EU ambassadors strongly critisized by the Danish ambassador because EU had more official languages than NATO, which had more member states and only used two languages, English and French.  I took the opportunity to explain the reason why – and in detail.  The ambassador did not seem to be pleased being taught lessons by a young EU lad in front of his colleagues.  He never came to our meetings again.
The language service of the EU is today by far the biggest in the world. It has 1.750 translators.  Their task is to translate written texts from or more other languages to their mother tongue. A key rule is that a translator only translates to her or his mother tongue.  Now and then you meet translators with more mother tongues, of which they have a complete command.  The newest figures I have seen about their work is that they all together translate 1,5 million pages per year.  Part of the work is done by teleworking, so it is not all translators who live and work in Brussels or Luxembourg.
The interpreters are linguists who are responsible for the interpretation in all the meetings.  Last year the number of such meetings were about 11.000.  They have to interpret at the very same time as the speaker makes the speech.  It is called simultaneous interpretation.  While the translators have some time to do some research and check-ups to make sure that the translated text is perfectly correct, then the interpreters have to work “here and now”. And on any topic.   That is why translators and interpreters are very different sort of people. A fantastic translator might not at all be a fantastic interpreter.  Or the other way around.  I know of nobody who do both tasks.  And they belong to different departments in the EU institutions.
You may also explain the difference in another way:  The officially translated text is binding. The work of the translator is a legally valid text. It is not the same with interpretation. Normally you do not use what an interpreter has said in a court case.
And there are in addition some specifics with interpretation.  Many politicians and officials understand other languages quite well. Still they very often insist that interpretation is also available to their own language. Why?  Then they have the possibility afterwards to say that what they might be critisiced for by other was not what they actually said – it was caused by the interpretation!    Not fair. But life is not always fair.
Another – and I believe rare – event when interpreters are concerned:  some of them might chose not to interpret everything.  I have once experienced a Danish interpreter say, while he was supposed to interpret an Italian minister, who spoke at length:  I will continue my interpretation, when the minister says something sensible!    It was probably not the youngest interpreter in the interpretation booth, who took the risk to say that 😊

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