The Languages of the European Union

As the major index pages of the official EU websites demonstrate, the European Union is a multi-cultural unification of many countries and many languages. The current 25 Member States of the European Union represent 20 official languages of the EU. Irish (Gaelic) is regarded to be an official EU language for primary legislation. Languages are and will continue to be an important EU issue. For example, what should be the languages at universities within the EU?



Expatica.com via DPA has a February 10, 2005 article enititled English rules the European Union, in which they report that there had been a marked increase in the teaching of English in Eastern Europe since 1998. Germany came in second and France third as the chosen second language of instruction.



However, to say that "English rules the European Union" is overstating the case a bit. Over the years, we have had business to do at several EU organizations in Luxembourg and have occasionally had difficulty finding English-language speakers among the rank and file (especially at the front door, where you need it most) with French clearly dominating. It all depends on where you look. In Luxembourg, it is French (or Luxembourgish, also called Lëtzebuergeusch) which has the upper hand, at least in the lower echelons.



Other EU or related language links:



There is even a Language Log blog, and of course a posting about EU Languages. (This is a fine blog which I am adding to LawPundit - I wish the Language Log would look here.)



EU Translators



EU Language Mainstreaming



Special Eurobarometer survey 54 'Europeans and Languages' (EU, made in 2000) reports, inter alia:



"93% of parents say it is important that their children learn other European languages.

72% of Europeans believe that knowing foreign languages is/ would be useful for them.

71% consider that everyone in the European Union should be able to speak one European language in addition to their mother tongue.

53% of Europeans say that they can speak at least one European language in addition to their mother tongue.

26% say that they can speak two European foreign languages".



Language Futures Europe



European Languages (BBC). As we have long noticed, the BBC is losing its touch. The material about Latvian, for example, does not provide a good overview of the language. No mention is made, for example, of the fact that Latvian together with Lithuanian are the most archaic still spoken Indo-European tongues and are of immense importance for a reconstruction of proto-Indo-European.



English-Only Europe? as an article and here as a book.