Nitobe Centre for language democracy
Language questions
Terms
On these pages various terms are used that could be understood in different ways. Here we give short descriptions for the purposes of the Nitobe Centre.
| Term | Description | Example | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Official language | A language whose use has been agreed upon in constitution or treaty | The official languages of Belgium are Dutch, French and German. | ||
| Official language of the EU | Language named "official language" in the laws of the EU. | Currently: English, Czech, Danish, Estonia, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, Irish (as of 2007), Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish | ||
| National language | The largest or an official language of a nation | French in France | ||
| Ethnic language | Language of an existing and specific ethnicity or ethnicities | French | ||
| Minority language | Language used by a minority group in a nation or region | Finnish in Sweden | ||
| Neutral language | Language that does not belong to a nation or ethnicity | Esperanto | ||
| Working language of the EU | Language used during meetings where there is no interpretation in other languages. (We are aware that the Council's regulations specify that all official languages are also working languages, but since this is often not the case in practice, we prefer to define "working language" as we have above.) | Usually English and sometimes French or German | ||
| Bridge language | Language used for communication among people with different native languages | English during an international conference without interpretation | ||
| Pivot language | Language that "links" two other languages during translation or interpretation | If Hungarian is translated into German and from German into Polish, German is the pivot language. | ||
| Relay system | When an interpreter uses the output of another interpreter rather than listening to the original speech. | A Greek interpreter does not understand spoken Swedish and therefore listens to an English interpreter rather than to the original speaker. He then interprets the English into Greek. | ||
| "Lingua franca" | Widely used bridge language | Currently English | ||
| Language equality | No national or ethnic language is more important than any other national or ethnic language. | At an international Esperanto congress | ||
| Language efficiency | Everyone can communicate with everyone else without problems. | At an international Esperanto congress | ||
| Language democracy | When language equality and efficiency are present | At an international Esperanto congress | ||
| Multilingualism | If there is multilingualism in a region, it means that people in that region understand several languages and that language equality and efficiency are more or less present in the region. | A meeting at which all participants are multilingual |
Discuss terms