maximin languages

From Philippe Van Parij in Eurozine (via The Browser), a counterintuitive argument for why the European Union should promote English as its official language, even with Brexit.

What made English the lingua franca of the European Union was neither its official status within the Union, nor the fact that the United Kingdom was a member state. Rather, the maximin mechanism gives English, the language that is already far the most widely spoken, a self-perpetuating advantage. Moreover, since Brexit, the English language has assumed a new neutrality; the choice of English will no longer be seen to confer a significant advantage on a major member state.

I love the concept of the “maximin mechanism,” especially when applied to languages. A “maximin” is defined as “the maximum of a set of minima.” A maximin mechanism becomes a very powerful network feedback loop, that self-perpetuating advantage.

More Van Parij:

For example, when knowledge of English overtakes that of French among Italians, and that of Italian among French, most conversations between French and Italian people will take place in English. Since both groups will have more opportunities to practice English than the mother tongue of their counterparts, they will invest more time and resources in learning it. As a result, English will more often be in the ‘maximin’ position and hence be used more often, further increasing the reasons and opportunities to learn it — and so on.

See also: Javascript?