Euro English

The English language in the rest of Europe progressed throughout the 1800s, when the British Empire inherited colonies in mainland Europe such as Malta, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Menorca, Heligoland, and the Ionian Islands, the latter two making up modern-day Germany and Greece respectively.

The term "Euro English" was first used by Carstensen in 1986 to denote the adoption of anglicisms in Europe.[5]

The enlargement of the European Union diminished the influence of other working languages (German and French). The development of the Erasmus Programme created a new class of mobile Europeans who needed a lingua franca to communicate across Europe.

The question whether the appropriation of English by non-native speakers in Continental Europe is giving rise to a potential European variety of English has not yet been resolved. Mollin rejected Euro-English as a variety of English.[5] According to Forche, many of the features suggested to be characteristic of Euro-English could be identified as learners’ mistakes, although there are some nativization tendencies.

While the UK was a member of the EU, Euro-English has been influenced and dominated by British English. With the withdrawal of the UK, popularized as Brexit, the number of native English speakers is mostly automatically reduced to the Irish, which one sources believes gives more room for Romance languages[6].

The Unicode Common Locale Data Repository Project had drafted/defined "en-150" for English in Europe.

There are two influences in Euro English: one top-down, and one bottom-up.

The top-down influence comes from institutions such as the English Style Guide, issued by the European Commission, which recommends ways to use English in written official documents. "On the whole it follows standard British English usage, but in cases where British English has alternatives, it makes decisions—such as recommending the spelling judgment, not judgement.".[7]

The bottom-up influence comes from the preferences of the people (38% of the EU's citizens speak English as a foreign language).[7]

Some words are given a plural with a final 's' in Euro-English, such as 'informations' and 'competences', to match similar words in European languages (such as 'informations' and 'compétences' in French) while this might be seen as incorrect in British or American English.[7]

Some words such as 'actor,' 'axis' or 'agent' are given a meaning as wide as in European languages while their meaning would keep a narrower range in native English.[7]

The Directorate-General for Translation of the EU has a style guide for English language to help write clear and readable regular English. This guide is based on the English spoken in Ireland and Great Britain, known as British English[8].

It does not consider itself EU English being different from real English but help to address specific EU terminology needs related to the way it works.

It prefers British English to American English but recommends avoiding very colloquial British usage.[8]

This style guide defines the thousand separator as space or as a comma, the plural of euro as euro.[8]

It also provides accuracy, for instance the word Brexit refers to the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, and not to a day of a referendum: since the Brexit referendum does not have the same meaning than since Brexit.[8]

The many years of the EU's existence have made some specific EU glossary to appear.

Non-native English speakers frequently drop the third person singular's suffix (s). For example: he often call meetings.[9]

The English plural of the word euro was first defined as euro without final s, before becoming euros with a final s.

• English language
• International English
• African English
• English as a lingua franca

• English in the European Union - Worlds of English (2/4), Open University
• S.D. (30 September 2011). "Euro-English: Blasting the bombast". The Economist. London.
• Ramsay, Anne (2001). Eurojargon: A Dictionary of the European Union. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers.

• Euro-English, English in the European Union. Teti Musmeci, Marina Foti
• The Allusionist podcast with Helen Zaltzman