Saturday, February 10, 2007

But They're Just Looking for a Little Tongue

The Pierre Trudeau strategy: get an adequate number of language laws in, so that your citizens end up taking charge over everyone else. Now control freak language-eugenicists are trying it in Europe, and are using a "more equal than others" type argument. Maybe they imagine no-one will react to the proposal because the overwhelming graciousness of the statement. After all, they did use the magic word "equality," even if they actually mean to impose its' opposite.

The CPLDE proposes that French should have the ultimate linguistic primacy in situations where EU officials or politicians are squabbling over what an EU text actually says when written in several languages.

"All languages are equal and all the national sensitivities are duly protected. However, as regards the interpretation of texts it is better to be certain what we are writing," said Mr Druon.

He argued that French should be "the authoritative" language as it is both related to Latin - in which Roman law was written - as well as the language of the Napoleonic code.
All the while making moronic assumptions about which languages are scientific sounding, romantic sounding, and other corner-store codswallop that hasn't been true for a century. Were that the case, German speakers would dominate science, Italians would be ubiquitous in contemporary art, and the French would actually seem the least bit precise in their logic.

No comments: