Romance languages could be an "antidote" to the hegemony of English / las lenguas románicas pueden ser un "antídoto" contra la lengua "hegemónica"

The Romance language world.

There's an interesting article here in Spanish on efforts to create a kind of sphere of mutual comprehensibility between Romance languages in order to combat the "hegemony" of the English language, in a forum using seven Romance languages without a translator. It would be really interesting to see a video of this in action.

I wonder if the people at the UMI (Union Mundial pro Interlingua) know about this conference, considering that Interlingua is pretty much a simplified mesh of Romance languages in order to be as easy to understand as possible at first sight.

Here are some parts from the article:

El experto en lengua francesa de la Comisión Europea (CE) Jean-François Baldi aseguró hoy que las lenguas románicas pueden ser un "antídoto" contra la lengua "hegemónica", el inglés, y por ello propuso que su estudio sea complementario al de la lengua franca anglosajona.

The expert of the French language in the European Commission, Jean-François Baldi, said today that Romance languages could be an "antidote" against the "hegemony" of English, and suggested that their study should be complementary to that of the Anglo-Saxon lingua franca.

El delegado adjunto para la lengua francesa de la CE intervino esta mañana en la conferencia "Lenguas románicas: traducción, multilingüismo y construcción europea", que acogerá hoy y mañana la Facultad de Filología de Santiago de Compostela y con la que se pretende fomentar la intercomprensión de las lenguas románicas, con 215 millones de hablantes en la Unión Europea.

The deputy for the French language at the EC spoke this morning at the conference: "Romance languages: translation, multilingualism and the building of Europe", which will happen today and tomorrow at the Faculty of Philology of Santiago de Compostela, with which it intends to promote mutual understanding of Romance languages, with 215 million speakers in the European Union.

En este foro convivirán sin traducción siete idiomas -francés, portugués, español, catalán, gallego, italiano y rumano- con el objetivo de "desarrollar el potencial de comprensión mutua por la cercanía de lenguas y su origen común"...

In this forum seven languages will coexist without translation - French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Italian and Romanian, with the objective to "develop the potential of mutual comprehension by the proximity of languages and their common origin"...



In case you're wondering how much Interlingua resembles other Romance languages, I'll make a quick translation of that last part there:

In iste foro convive sin traduction septe linguas - francese, portugese, hispano, catalan, gallego, italiano e romaniano - con le objectivo de "disveloppar le potential de comprehension mutual per le proximitate de linguas e su origine commun"

The language I personally prefer is Occidental, but considering the larger size of the Interlingua movement I wonder if they are involved with this at all, and if not, what they're waiting for.


Edit: Wikipedia has an example of the similarities between a great number of Romance languages. I'll add Interlingua and Occidental to the list for comparison.

Latin	(Illa) Claudit semper fenestram antequam cenat.
Aragonese	Ella tranca/zarra siempre la finestra antis de zenar.
Asturian	Ella pieslla siempre la ventana/feniestra primero de cenar.
Bergamasque (Eastern Lombard)	(Lé) La sèra sèmper sö la finèstra prima de senà.
Catalan	Ella tanca sempre la finestra abans de sopar.
Franco-Provençal (Arpitan)	(Le) Sarre toltin/tojor la fenétra avan de goutâ/dinar/sopar.
French	Elle ferme toujours la fenêtre avant de dîner/souper.
Galician	(Ela) Pecha sempre a fiestra/xanela antes de cear.
Interlingua	Illa claude semper le fenestra ante le cena.
Italian	(Lei) chiude sempre la finestra prima di cenare.
Leonese	Eilla pecha siempres la ventana primeiru de cenare.
Milanese (Western Lombard)	(Lee) la sara semper su la finestra primma de disnà.
Mirandese	Eilha cerra siempre la bentana/jinela atrás de jantar.
Neapolitan	Essa nzerra sempe 'a fenesta primma 'e magnà
Occidental	Ella sempre clude li fenestre ante li supé.
Occitan	(Ela) Barra sempre/totjorn la fenèstra abans de sopar.
Piedmontese	Chila a sara sèmper la finestra dnans da fé sin-a.
Portuguese	(Ela) Fecha sempre a janela antes de jantar.
Romanian	Ea închide totdeauna fereastra înainte de cină.
Romansh	Ella clauda/serra adina la fanestra avant ch'ella tschainia.
Friulian	Jê e siere simpri il barcon prin di cenâ.
Corsican	Ella chjudi sempre u purtellu primma di cenà.
Sardinian	Issa serrat semper sa bentana antes de chenare.
Sicilian	Idda chiudi sempri la finestra àntica pistìa.
Spanish	Ella siempre cierra la ventana antes de cenar.
Venetian	Ła sara sempre ła finestra prima de senar.
Walloon	Ele sere todi li finiesse divant di soper.
Translation	She always closes the window before dinner/supper.