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Comment by lostlogin | Hacker News Reader

Having English as the official language of the EU when England isn’t in the EU would be quite funny.

What other language could the EU possibly use as a common language for communications between member states? English is the only language that you can use everywhere within the union and have a decent chance of being able to communicate with people (and this is true everywhere else in the world too).

It'll finally be the year of the Esperanto lingua franca.

Ireland and Malta are in the EU, both with English as the official language.

This is along with the fact that English is lingua franca in EU and wider.

> Ireland and Malta are in the EU, both with English as the official language

It’s a nitpick to be sure, but shouldn’t it be “ Ireland and Malta are in the EU, both with English as AN official language”

Sure, although English is absolutely the dominant language in almost all of the Republic of Ireland, where in Malta the situation is similar to the Netherlands, where most people it's just a very proficient second language.

Ireland and Malta are two EU members where English is one of the official languages.

But they picked Irish and Maltese ad their "EU must support it" language, since English was already there.

When Brexit was looming there was a bit of a scare that when the UK was gone English would no longer be supported.

But luckily the EU institutions were not insane.

this kind of thing doesn't happen immediately, English support gone in one generation would be more the thing.

Ireland would change their request if it comes to it, because practically nobody speaks Irish

According to Wikipedia, 93% of students in the EU currently learn it at school…

It’s rather humbling how many languages are spoken by individuals there - and my experience is that people there often have other languages in common too.

How so? The US also uses English and not Lakota or some (or multiple) native American languages.

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