The lesson of Babel

Date: 22/02/1996

“COME, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand each other's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel...” (Genesis 11.7-9).

But language is not about confusion. It has two essential aspects, one symbolic, and one functional. It is a medium of communication and it is an integral part of the identity of a race or nation, along with its flag or national anthem.

As the world has become more open and nations more interdependent, contact between languages has also become much more widespread and multilingualism has been forced to develop as a result.

At the same time, recent history, especially in Europe, has seen the reawakening of national sentiment, with the restoration of old nations and their languages from federations such as the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union.

Languages are important expressions of identity in new nations such as South Africa. They remain a strong political issue in multilingual states, such as Belgium, and even regions within states, such as Catalunya in Spain, are asserting their identity through their own language.

The EU is faced with a permanent dilemma over its own policy towards languages, on the one hand wishing to promote multilingualism out of respect for national and regional identities and cultures and, on the other, struggling with the technical and financial difficulties of conducting its own business with full cover for official and working languages.

With further enlargement now only a matter of time, there is some talk of a crisis looming, with the addition of new languages threatening to lead to the chaos of the Old Testament.

This latter-day Babel finds its origins in the founding Treaties of the European Communities in the 1950s, in which equal status was given to the official languages of the original six member states, creating an EC with four official and working languages.

Subsequent enlargements led to the addition of another seven languages, resulting in the present total of 11 for 15 member states.

Each enlargement was negotiated with little more than lip service paid to the possibility of rationalising the policy of full multilingualism, and the most recent accessions even saw particular attention paid to the importance of maintaining it.

Not only did Sweden and Finland insist on equal treatment, but the negotiations with Norway made express provision for the use of both official forms of Norwegian. It was clearly felt that, given Scandinavian scepticism over European integration as shown so clearly in the Danish referendum on the Maastricht Treaty, it would be a public relations gaffe to suggest that the members of the European Free Trade Association enter the EU with restrictions placed on the use of their different languages.

To the relief of certain officials responsible for already overstretched language services, the population of Norway voted, as they did in 1972, to remain outside.

The political importance attached to official and working languages in the Union goes beyond the function of language as a symbol of national identity.

The EU as a multinational entity is unique in the world, since it enjoys sovereignty transferred from member states in a wide range of areas. Its institutions are responsible for legislation that is directly applicable in the territory of the member states and are accountable to varying degrees to individual citizens for their actions.

It is essential, therefore, that communication among the institutions, as well as between them and the member states, be conducted in the official languages of those countries. It would thus be inconceivable for a candidate for the European Parliament to be expected to use a language other than his or her own, either to get elected or to perform duties once in office.

It is this political reality which has thwarted any serious attempts to introduce restrictions on the number of languages covered, and which led to the outcry against the mere suggestion by French Minister Alain Lamassoure in December 1994 that the number of languages be reduced.

There are also, however, technical and financial realities at stake. The EU institutions are by far the largest recruiters of translators and interpreters in the world. The translation service of the Commission translates well over a million pages of text per year.

The plenary week of the European Parliament in Strasbourg each month requires the services of over 450 conference interpreters. A single simultaneous 11-language meeting in the Council of Ministers uses 33 interpreters, three in each booth.

It is estimated that around 40&percent; of the Union's administrative budget is spent on multilingualism, or around 2 billion ecu per annum. In addition to salaries, the cost of equipping meeting rooms with interpretation systems and providing computer systems for translators, there are also the hidden costs such as office space, and personnel and administration.

Yet these financial and technical realities have not led to insurmountable difficulties. Anyone attending meetings in the institutions will admit that, in purely technical terms, multilingualism works.

The increasing number of language combinations means that there is more and more recourse to the use of relay interpretation, with the use of 'core' languages acting as servers for the other booths.

Although often criticised for delays, with the old adage of the Danes or, these days, the Finns, laughing at jokes ten seconds later than other delegates, relay interpreting is usually accurate and enables more rational use of interpreters.

Similarly, the EU budget has always provided financing to purchase new equipment and to cope with the increasing workload of language staff at the institutions. Often the problem has been to find enough linguists with the necessary skills who can meet the high professional standards required. The institutions must continue to invest in training and recruitment in order to maintain their services even with the present number of languages.

As far as the future is concerned, the political importance of maintaining full multilingualism still outweighs the financial and technical problems it entails.

In spite of the possibility of another dozen languages being added in forthcoming enlargements, the Reflection Group's report for the IGC this year clearly stated that: “The instruments of the EU will have to respect the linguistic and cultural diversity of the Union. Respect for transparency and for greater participation by national parliaments must be the criteria governing the Union's treatment of official languages.”

So no radical solutions can be expected to the problems facing the Union over multilingualism. A lingua franca such as Latin or Esperanto is unrealistic, in the short or medium term, as a replacement for the present system, bilingualism in all politicians and civil servants is an impossible dream, and restrictions on the number of languages used are politically unacceptable.

Rationalisation is possible, with reductions in the number of languages used for certain purposes, but the domains of legislation and democratic accountability, principally the responsibility of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, will require full multilingualism regardless of how many member states there may be eventually.

A foretaste of things to come could be savoured at last December's Madrid summit, where interpretation was provided for 19 working languages at the special session involving the heads of government of candidate countries.

Perhaps multilingualism, and the vital services provided by the thousands of interpreters and translators who work for the EU institutions every day, should be viewed, as Jacques Delors did in 1991, as “the price to pay for a democratic Europe”.

Those with loftier ambitions for Europe should remember the lesson of Babel. “They said 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves' ... and the Lord said 'Behold ... this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do now will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language ...' “ (Genesis 11.4-7).

The rest is multilingual history. Perhaps the Eurosceptics can claim some divine inspiration.

Francis Cole is a freelance conference interpreter working mainly for the European Parliament. He also trains interpreters and is writing a doctoral thesis on multilingualism and supra-national bodies.