Eurobabble

EU translator Jeremy Gardner appeared on the Radio 4 Today programme yesterday (listen here, about 52:13 m in) to talk about his collection of almost 100 'Eurospeak' words and phrases, which he comes across in his job. EU officials don't talk about cows, sheep and goats, but bovine animals, ovine animals and caprine animals (see this old post of mine looking at adjectives relating to animals). Another example given was 'voluntary modulation', which is something to do with farming.

 

One reason for the preponderance of such nonsensical phrases is that most EU officials are writing in a language that is not their native language, so their English is affected by their first language. On a positive note, most of them understand what is meant - even if native English speakers don't. FT journalist Alex Barber, who also appeared on the programme, gave an instance when a hapless British diplomat corrected a grammatically wrong and meaningless phrase used by his colleagues in a meeting, only to be overruled by the chair. He said that Herman van Rompuy, president of the European Council, once extolled the virtues of 'asymmetric translation' ie countries' representatives translate words in different ways depending on what goes down well at home (so, for instance, the British and the Germans talk about economic governance, but the French talk about economic government).

 

There are more examples from Jeremy Gardner's EU-Speak dossier here.

Comments

[Right Paddock]

I think Mr Gardner needs to put more water in whatever he's drinking. He writes

‘Cabinet’ (usually pronounced ‘cabinay’ by English speakers and ‘cabinet’ by others)

Nonsense, the only time when 'cabinay' is used is in the context of a bottle of antipodean Cabinet Sauvignon. Also, that pronunciation hasn't been used in the context of the Ministerium [sic] since Henry V occupied the throne ;)

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks, Right Paddock, I agree - it does seem odd.