IFRS vs. Esperanto
Posted by Christie Malry on March 24, 2010 at 10:32 pm
A short while ago, I extolled the virtues of Latin. And I was delighted to get challenged by an Esperanto advocate as to whether it would be beneficial to teach Esperanto to children instead of Latin.
This set me thinking. IFRS, the global set of accounting standards, is sometimes called the Esperanto of accounting. IFRS was made mandatory for all European listed companies from 2005 thanks to the IAS Regulation passed in 2002. The idea was simple - only by having a single common reporting language could the dream of harmonised, borderless securities transactions be realised. British investors could buy shares in a listed company from, say, Estonia safe in the knowledge that their accounts were prepared on the same basis as a company listed in London.
At least, that was the idea. A study commissioned by the European Union and undertaken by the ICAEW found in 2007 that "the increased amount of judgement required by IFRS as a generally principles-based set of standards presented considerable challenges, and some concerns were expressed about consistency of application." In other words, some preparers found IFRS tricky to implement and this had knock-on implications for comparability across countries. This isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of the IFRS dream.
Where does Esperanto fit in? A key feature of the European Union is its official languages. EU regulations and other legislative documents are published in each of the official languages. In practice, this means lots of work for translators. It's generally recognised that it's particularly dippy to include Maltese and Irish. After all, who in Ireland doesn't already speak English? It's great that Gaelic translators now have a steady income stream, but not so great for the poor Europeans who are forced through taxation to fund them.
As with IFRS, could the European Union have required Esperanto to be the official language of the EU? The same arguments could have been used to justify it - we need a common language to support cross-border trade and it will reduce the operating cost of the EU by eliminating pesky translation for internal processes. Because, unlike other languages, Esperanto is felt to be free from dialects, it would aid communication. Wouldn't it?
Well - no. Ultimately, the decision to operate under a plurality of languages was politically expedient. The French would never have tolerated an English-only policy; the Germans would never tolerate being excluded if French were an official language; the Italians and Spanish equally would want a share; and ultimately the European Union would find itself unable to say 'no' to the country just on the wrong side of the line. Also, there's simply no way that Esperanto would be tolerated as an official language in the UK, where appreciation of the European Union is less well developed than in other countries. That hasn't discouraged the formation of Eŭropo – Demokratio – Esperanto, a political party which wants Esperanto to be introduced as the official language of the EU.
