BRITAIN has never been a typical European Union (EU) member. It is the only country vetoed for membership (by France), and twice, at that. It joined only in 1973, almost two decades after the original six members established the European Economic Community. It is more free-trading, free-marketeering and Atlanticist than the continent. And it is the only country to hold a referendum on leaving, in 1975, not to mention a second one, due in June.

All this makes it anomalous that the institutions of the EU are dominated by the language of its most recalcitrant member. Legally, the 24 official languages of the 28 members have equal status. Gradually, however, English has displaced French as the most common language between two Eurocrats or parliamentarians who do not share a native tongue. Even so, many French-speakers still expect that, in any gathering, it is acceptable to switch to French and expect the room to follow. (Indeed, most people can, partly because the union’s de facto capital, Brussels, is mostly French-speaking.) No other language’s speakers presume this, though German is often called the third working language.

So English is very much first among equals, despite the fact that English voters may favour leaving the EU. (Voters in the other three nations of the United Kingdom are more likely to prefer staying in.) That would leave an odd fact: a union of 450m dominated by a language spoken officially only in the Republic of Ireland (population 4.6m) and Malta (where it is co-official on an island of 450,000), unless Scotland demands and wins a second referendum on independence from Britain, and rejoins the EU.

But even with the Scots, 10m or so native English-speakers will be a tiny minority in a union of over 450m. An increasing number of the others speak English—in 2012 a report found that 38% of the EU’s citizens speak it as a foreign language. Nearly all of those working at EU institutions in Brussels do. What would happen to English without the English?

A sort of Euro-English, influenced by foreign languages, is already in use. Many Europeans use “control” to mean “monitor” because contrôler has that meaning in French. The same goes for “assist”, meaning to attend (assister in French, asistir in Spanish). In other cases, Euro-English is just a naive but incorrect extension of English grammatical rules: many nouns in English that don’t properly pluralise with a final “s” are merrily used in Euro-English, such as “informations” and “competences”. Euro-English also uses words like “actor”, “axis” or “agent” well beyond their narrow range in native English.

Jeremy Gardner, an official at the European Court of Auditors, has written a guide to “Misused English Words and Expressions in EU Publications”, which attempts to correct many of these quirks of Euro-English. It could be that whatever native-speakers might consider correct, Euro-English, second language or no, is becoming a dialect fluently spoken by a large group of people who understand each other perfectly well. Such is the case of English in India or South Africa, where a small group of native speakers is dwarfed by a far larger number of second-language speakers. One effect may be that this dialect would lose some of the tricky bits of English, such as the future perfect progressive (“We will have been working”) that aren’t strictly necessary.

What about the other European languages? The French would be thrilled to restore their language to its old primacy. This will not happen: the French academician who suggested that French be the union’s sole legal language in 2007 (thanks to its supposedly unmatched precision) was surely pitied as much as he was laughed at. But French’s role as the second language of the EU is assured—some old hands still prefer it as a lingua franca. Despite the economic strength and political confidence of modern Germany, the Germans are not keen on pushing their language on others.

All this makes for an odd result. Britain may be a polarising, unusual EU member, but English has become neutral, utilitarian; it is useful because others understand it. Its association with Britain is already weak and set to weaken if “Brexit” comes to pass. Dreamers have long hoped for a neutral auxiliary language that is common to all. Some have even gone to the trouble of inventing such languages. Who knows? English might one day fulfil the destiny intended for Esperanto.

Correction: This article originally stated that an EU without Britain (but possibly with Scotland) would have just 10m native English-speakers in a Union of some 500m. That should have been 450m, to take account of those leaving upon Brexit.