Sovereign State

Ian Robinson on a prospectus for a European dictionary

"There is much talk of our still being an English-speaking member of the Commonwealth, linked with America and so on. It would help internationalism much more if we joined Europe, which has five or six different languages," said Mr John Mackie during the 'Great Debate' of 1971. His prophetic vision is being realised in a new language, to Which Professor George Steiner has recently drawn attention: Standard Mid-European. This is the language in which the United States of Europe (USE) can expect to conduct its affairs. SME has no grammar or vocabulary of its own distinct from those of the language of USE, but like Arabic numerals is a conceptual system directly realisable in all the European languages. SME-English can therefore be turned into SMt-French, SME-German, SME-Italian and so on automatically, and so there are never any problems of interpretation at the European Parliament.

There is, however, sure to be a difficult period of transition before SME is perfectly operational in the notoriously insular and backward language Standard English, during which time SME concepts may be disfigured by atavistic national survivals, for, as an HMG fact-sheet wisely warned us, "each nation continues using its own language for ordinary purposes." SME must of course be taught in schools — the influential use of it by so many educationists is not enough — and this teaching would be the very centre of that "European non-national content at school level" for which the Graduate School of Contemporary European Studies of the University of Reading so rightly calls in support of "the European cause in Britain." I propose therefore, using modern computerised techniques and the sophisticated hardware kindly put at my disposal by the Club of Rome, to bring out a Transitional SME-English dictionary as soon as I have received half a million subscriptions of £75 (index-related, VAT zero-rated), and as a sample I offer the following glossary and notes of SME terms which might otherwise be misunderstood during the Referendum Campaign, the first major test of SME in English.

SME Present English (or parochial English) Europe Commonmarket

Note: In written PE the SME sense of Europe can also be represented by the use of inverted commas as "Europe." In PE the word Europe without inverted commas refers to the whole of the continent, all its people, nations in all their history, culture and religion, whereas "Europe" refers to a recent economic arrangement by several West European nations and to the federal government they now propose. This may confuse when "Europeans" accuse others of being anti-European, since those who run "Europe" show no interest in Europe in the archaic sense, and may themselves seem to the chauvinists to be anti-European at least in a certain indifference to the achievements of Europe.

PE SME Great Britain or Little England United Kingdom The SME concept of the pettiness and unimportance of this nation is understandably difficult to naturalise in its stubbornly national language. The island people suppose that they belong to one of the largest and most populous European countries, with a continuous history as a great power longer than that of any other save France. SME must be given time to sink in. Meanwhile also: parochial patriotic insular pro-British anti-Marketeer displaced person good European SME absolutely presupposes that Europe is really one state, unfortunately though transiently divided by the fall of the Roman Empire, but Present English tends to assume the existence of the European nation-states, hence: fratricidal strife European war civil war Since SME is the central language and PE surviving patois of an up-country district: out in the cold home region nation In SME the nation is "Europe," though "nation" itself is an obsolescent concept since "Europe" is not to perform any of the functions of a nation, e.g. in protecting the interests of its subjects. The "regions" (France, the United Kingdom etc.) may be expected to become more alike as USE becomes more securely established, for the Treaty of Rome explains that it exists to "ensure their [the "Nations"] harmonious development by reducing the differences existing between their various regions," but until this happens another SME concept will only go into English with difficulty. • "The young now can look forward to leading life with the whole of Western Europe as a home land," as the Times said once. But the "ordinary purposes" of the old languages will tend to ensure that the French think of France as their homeland, the Italians of Italy, and so USE will do away with the tiresome necessity faced by members of regional assemblies, I mean of facing constituents occasionally. Mr Roy Hattersley — assuring us that "Europe" going to be run just like the old democratic regions, because the "European" executive can do nothing against the will of the regional executives — neglected this great advantage and the related one that there will be no means of repealing acts of the "European Parliament." Hence: European Parliament Commonmarket

Nominated Consultative Nmd

i community bureaucracy

In the places where SME is already thoroughly acclimatised in English — the BBC, for instance, the Times—SME "parliament" is already heard in phrases like "Chinese Parliament," "Russian Parliament" (PE "Supreme Soviet"), "Spanish Parliament" ("Cortez"), and so on.

The other transitional problem in the years

before SME becomes the same as English will of course be the translation into SME of those PE. idioms that do not belong there. They include, for instance, the words of the regional folk-ritual known in PE as the "National Anthem", and many a speech from the local versifier William Shakespeare. My view is that a bold line should be taken with these anachronisms and that they should be swept away suddenly like pounds, shillings and pence rather than being allowed to hang around during any uneasy period of transition but, if this is too radical, SME versions could no doubt be arranged. A USE Song translated from the so-called National Anthem might begin

'Growth save the EEC! Expand the EEC! Grow, Europe, grow!

or perhaps something could be done with the group-solidarity phrases from that interesting work of proto-SME, Huxley's Brave New World.

But Shakespeare must obviously be phased

out of our regional comprehensives. Students should instead be nurtured on the pronouncements of M. Ortoli, Herr Schmidt, our own regional Mr Heath (RIP) and many others froin the contemporary galaxy of Europe, shining examples of what we may expect from Standard Mid-European.

Ian Robinson is author of The Survival of English, a study of the uses of language.