The evolution of Eurish

Over years of attending conferences, chairing panels and running training programmes in more than a dozen European cities, I have begun to note the contours of this changing language that I call Eurish. It is still English, but it has its own features that are often common to both romance and Germanic languages.

One feature is the European uncountable noun — singular in native-speaker English but plural in Eurish: “he received feedbacks”, “we have a lot of informations” and “we are producing online contents”.

There are other Eurish differences. I have heard both Germans and Italians say “we discussed about” rather than “we discussed”. “I will answer to your question” is common in many European discussions. Writing in the World Englishes journal, Mr Modiano adds others: “I am coming from Spain” rather than “I come from Spain” and “We were five people at the party” rather than “There were five people at the party”.

Continental Europeans are increasingly unworried about what Brits think of their developing English.

That is from Michael Skapinker at the FT, via Lennert.

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