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

From:Joe <joe@...>
Date:Sunday, May 2, 2004, 6:50
Mark P. Line wrote:

>Danny Wier said: > > >>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. >> >> > >Cyprus means Cyprus, which is bilingual. (There are probably some Cypriots >who would disagree, but that's the EU position as nearly as I can tell.) >The Translation Directorate is expanding to include Turkish as a >co-official language or something like that -- Turkish Cypriots are >certainly not being left out in today's expansion. > > >
Actually, they are. All European laws will apply only to Greek Cyprus, and only Greek is becoming an official language.
>>Will >>this change the number of official languages of the European Parliament? >> >> > >Yes. Twenty official languages, but Malta has agreed to restrict the use >of Maltese to treaty texts. They'll muddle through with English for >everything else. > > >
I'm not sure if that's true - surely, an official language is an official language.
>>But still only two scripts. No Cyrillic-alphabet languages yet. >> >> > >Byelorussian will probably be the first one to use Cyrillic; maybe the >only one. > > > >
Actually, the first one will be Bulgarian, which will join in 2007.
>>So who will join in the next expansion? Will Turkey and Turkish Cyprus get >>another shot? >> >> > >Turkey may or may not get its act together. There's a lot of pressure from >Germany and Skandinavia for them to clean up their human rights violations >against the Kurds, which they may or may not find it opportune to do. > > > >
They already have done. At least to some degree. I don't expect they'll make the 2007 expansion, but maybe a few years later.
>>Other Balkan republics? >> >> > >Croatia is a sure thing. Others are still iffy, I think. > > > >
And Romania and Bulgaria.
>>Former USSR states? >> >> > >Byelorussia for sure. Ukraine probably won't get a domestic mandate to >join the EU in my lifetime. Armenia and Georgia will almost certainly >join, though I wouldn't bet on it being in the next expansion. > > >
Not Belarus, in the next expansion, anyway. Belarus is practically a dictatorship, from what I've heard. Ukraine is a much safer bet. Armenia, too.
>Albania is not former USSR, but you didn't mention it and it's almost >certain to join eventually. > > >
It's a Balkan state, but that'll be a long time.
>>An independent Faeroe Islands or Greenland? >> >> > >When Hell freezes over. I expect Iceland to join eventually, though, so I >guess it evens out... > >Norway and Liechtenstein seem to have made themselves comfortable with the >status quo, and I don't see that changing. > > > >
I think Norway's planning to have a referendum soon. Iceland will join in a while, but, again, not in the next expansion.

Replies

Jean-François Colson <fa597525@...>
John Cowan <cowan@...>