London: The English language may be one of the casualties of Brexit as it emerged that no state other than the UK has registered it as a primary language among the 28 countries within the European Union.
English has been the top choice for European Union (EU) institutions but Britain's vote to leave the union last week could trigger a ban on its use.
"We have a regulation where every EU country has the right to notify one official language," Danuta Hubner, the Polish MEP or Member of European Parliament who heads the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee, told a press conference in Brussels yesterday.
"The Irish have notified Gaelic and the Maltese have notified Maltese, so you have only the UK notifying English," she said in reference to the fact that English is in everyday use in member countries Ireland and Malta.
English is one of the EU’s 24 official languages because the U.K. identified it as its own official language, Hübner said. But as soon as Britain completes the process to leave the EU, English could lose its status.
“If we don’t have the U.K., we don’t have English,” Hübner said.
Hubner said that although English was the "dominant language" used by the EU civil servants and MEPs, in legal terms "if you do not have the UK, you do not have English", 'The Times' reported.
Regulations would have to be changed to retain the language, requiring a unanimous vote from the 27 remaining states.
(PTI inputs)
