With 24 official languages, the E.U. spent about 1 billion
euros on translation and interpretation in 2016. The defense that diversity and
language-learning were promoted is based on the specious reductionism of
cultural diversity to language and the faulty assumption that E.U. business
being conducted in a myriad of languages prompts E.U. citizens to pick up an
additional language. After all, such an undertaking is not like changing
clothes or knitting a sweater. Meanwhile, the true cost of using the E.U. to
make ideological claims using language as a symbol goes beyond euros to include
the foregone ability of the E.U. to integrate even enough to adequately conduct
its existing competencies, or domains of authority.
The full essay is at "A Linguistic Tower of Babel."
