Press release: 1 April 2010

CILT, the National Centre for Languages, has announced details of an ambitious international initiative to make foreign languages more accessible to UK learners. The scheme involves high level negotiations with foreign Governments to agree simplifications to spelling, grammar and vocabulary, to help Britons overcome their reluctance to get to grips with a foreign language.

Teresa Tinsley, Director of Communications, said:

‘Foreign Governments are very sympathetic to our efforts to get more Britons speaking their languages. We are looking particularly at those areas which offer greatest difficulty to pupils, such as the gender system. The French have indicated that the Académie Française would be willing to look at merging ‘le’ and ‘la’’.

However, a similar proposal for Spanish had to be abandoned because of problems it would create distinguishing between ‘Pope’ and ‘potato’. ‘They seem very positive about abolishing the pluperfect subjunctive though’, says Tinsley. ‘That’s a definite runner because there are no religious objections.’

The Germans have been particularly helpful in suggesting that, rather than adapting their language, they could import a raft of English vocabulary to help English learners. Karl Pfeiffer from the Goethe Institut said: ‘If we can give English words like ‘zeitgeist’ and ‘leitmotif’, why shouldn’t German adopt useful English words such as ‘asbo’, ‘wheelie bin’ and ‘WAG’?’

Herr Pfeiffer went on to reveal details of an ambitious five-year plan to remove case endings from German nouns, and to push for a European Directive on the free movement of lexical items within the European Union.

Negotiations with the Chinese have so far proved more difficult because of their counter demand for adaptations to the English language. ‘This would be a no go area for the Scots’ said Tinsley. ‘There is no way they would be able to merge their ‘l’s’ with their ‘r’s’.

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