Re: CHAT: The EU expands (was Re: THEORY/CHAT: Talmy, Jackendoff and Matchboxes)

Danny Wier wrote:

>From: "Jean-François Colson" <fa597525@...>
>
>
>
>>And while we're still on the 1st of May...
>>
>><UTF-8 ¡¡¡¡¡UNICODE ALERT!!!!!>
>>
>>Welcome
>>Tere tulemast to the Estonians
>>Sveiki atvyke to the Lituanians
>>Laipni ludzam to the Latvians
>>Merhba to the Maltese
>>Üdvözlöm to the Hungarians
>>Dobrodošel to the Slovenes
>>Vitame vás to the Slovaks
>>Vítejte to the Czechs
>>Witajcie to the Polish
>>?a??s???sate to the Cypriots
>>
>>
>
>The EU now has languages from three families: IE, Uralic and Afro-Asiatic.
>Malta was a close vote; the others were not. Turkey got rejected, and I
>assume Cyprus means only the Greek part, so no Altaic languages yet. Will
>this change the number of official languages of the European Parliament?
>
>
>
Yup.  Thewre are now(I believe) twenty languages.

>But still only two scripts. No Cyrillic-alphabet languages yet.
>
>So who will join in the next expansion? Will Turkey and Turkish Cyprus get
>another shot? Other Balkan republics? Former USSR states? An independent
>Faeroe Islands or Greenland? And will Esperanto or any other IAL get widely
>accepted in the Union government, or will they just give up on that
>altogether....
>
>
The next expansion will be Romania, Bulgaria, and, (perhaps) Croatia, in
2007.  Maybe Turkey and Macedonia(Former Yugoslav Republic of),
also.After that, well,  the former USSR states are in a bit of a mess.
If there are going to be any joining, I'd guess Ukraine first, then
perhaps some Caucasian states.  Balkan republics - Serbia and
Montenegro, perhaps seperately, and maybe Albania, eventually.  Iceland
and Norway, will, one day, maybe join.  Switzerland, maybe.  As well as
this, I wouldn't rule Israel out, if they get the whole mess they're in
now sorted out.

>(I live in the USA; we're still trying to get used to TWO languages here.)
>
>
>
>
Strictly speaking, the US has three official languages(No, it has no
federal official language, I know, but State languages) - English,
Spanish, and Hawaiian.