(Redirected from European languages)
Most of the many
languages of
Europe belong to the
Indo-European language family. Another major family is the
Finno-Ugric. The
Turkic family also has several European members. The
North and
South Caucasian families are important in the southeastern extremity of geographical Europe. Basque is a
language isolate.
As yet this list does not include languages spoken by relatively recently-arrived migrant communities.
Linguistic map of Europe (simplified).
Altaic languages
Mongolic languages
★
Kalmyk
Turkic languages
Northwestern Turkic (Kypchak) languages
★ Western
★
★
Karachay-Balkar
★
★
Karaim
★
★
Krymchak
★
★
Kumyk
★ Northern
★
★
Bashkir
★
★
Tatar
★ Southern
★
★
Kazakh
★
★
Nogay
★
Crimean Tatar
★
Urum
Southwestern Turkic (Oghuz) languages
★ Western
★
★
Azeri
★
★
Gagauz
★
★
Turkish
Bolgar languages
★
Chuvash
Basque
The
Basque language of the northern
Iberian Peninsula is a
language isolate, and as such is not related to any other language. This language may date back 7,000 years, before waves of Indo-European speaking peoples settled in Europe, but didn't penetrate the area of northern
Spain and southwest
France until the first millennia AD. The language is also spoken by immigrants in Australia, Costa Rica, Mexico, the Philippines, and the USA
[1].
Finno-Ugric languages
Approximate geographical distribution of areas where indigenous Finno-Ugric languages are spoken. Diagonal patterns indicate sparsely populated areas. Dotted lines mark boundaries of corresponding subnational administrative units.
The Finno-Ugric languages are a subfamily of the
Uralic language family.
★
Ugric (Ugrian)
★
★ Hungarian
★
★
★
Hungarian
★
★ Ob Ugric
★
★
★
Khanty
★
★
★
Mansi
★
Finno-Permic
★
★ Permic
★
★
★
Komi
★
★
★
Komi-Permyak
★
★
★
Udmurt
★
★ Finno-Volgaic
★
★
★ Mari
★
★
★
★
Mari
★
★
★
Mordvinic
★
★
★
★
Erzya
★
★
★
★
Moksha
★
★
★ Extinct Finno-Volgaic languages of uncertain position
★
★
★
★
Merya
★
★
★
★
Muromian
★
★
★
★
Meshcherian
★
★
★ Finno-Lappic
★
★
★
★
Sami
★
★
★
★
★ Western Sami
★
★
★
★
★
★
Southern Sami
★
★
★
★
★
★
Ume Sami
★
★
★
★
★
★
Lule Sami
★
★
★
★
★
★
Pite Sami
★
★
★
★
★
★
Northern Sami
★
★
★
★
★ Eastern Sami
★
★
★
★
★
★
Kemi Sami (extinct)
★
★
★
★
★
★
Inari Sami
★
★
★
★
★
★
Akkala Sami (extinct)
★
★
★
★
★
★
Kildin Sami
★
★
★
★
★
★
Skolt Sami
★
★
★
★
★
★
Ter Sami
★
★
★
★
Baltic-Finnic
★
★
★
★
★
Estonian
★
★
★
★
★
★
Estonian
★
★
★
★
★
★
Seto
★
★
★
★
★
★
Võro
★
★
★
★
★
Finnish (including
Meänkieli or Tornedalian Finnish,
Kven Finnish, and
Ingrian Finnish)
★
★
★
★
★
Ingrian
★
★
★
★
★
Karelian
★
★
★
★
★
★
Karelian proper
★
★
★
★
★
★
Lude
★
★
★
★
★
★
Olonets Karelian
★
★
★
★
★
Livonian
★
★
★
★
★
Veps
★
★
★
★
★
Votic
North Caucasian languages
Northwest Caucasian languages
★
Abaza
★
Abhkaz
★
Adyghe
★
Kabardian
Northeast Caucasian languages
★
Avar
★
Bats
★
Chechen
★
Dargin
★
Ingush
★
Lak
★
Lezgian
★
Tabasaran
★
Tsez
★
Udi
Maltese
Maltese is a
Semitic language spoken in
Malta and related to
Arabic but written with the
Latin script. It is the smallest official language of the
EU in terms of speakers.
South Caucasian languages
★
Georgian
★
Laz
★
Mingrelian
★
Svan
Indo-European languages
Most European languages are Indo-European languages. This large language-family is descended from a common language that was spoken thousands of years ago, which is referred to as ''
Proto-Indo-European''.
Albanian
The language, also known as Shqip is made up of two major dialects,
Geg and
Tosk spoken in the country of
Albania, by Albanian speaking minorities in the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia, in
Kosovo,
Serbia, and some Albanian speakers living in parts of
Montenegro, also southern parts of
Italy and many other
European countries.
Armenian
The
Armenian language is widely spoken as the majority language in
Armenia which was under the
Soviet Union until 1991. There are Armenian speakers in globally scattered communities of the
Armenian diaspora in Europe, the
Middle East, and the
Americas (in North and South America).
Baltic languages
★
Curonian
★
Galindian (extinct)
★
Latgalian
★
Latvian
★
Lithuanian
★
Old Prussian (extinct)
★
Samogitian
★
Selonian (extinct)
★
Semigallian (extinct)
★
Sudovian (extinct)
Celtic languages
Brythonic
★
Cornish - revived
★
Cumbric - extinct
★
Breton
★
Welsh
Goidelic (Gaelic)
★
Irish
★
Manx
★
Scottish Gaelic
Germanic languages
'The Germanic languages in Europe'
North Germanic
(descending from
Old Norse)
★ Insular Scandinavian
★
★
Icelandic
★
★
Faroese
★
★
Norn (extinct)
★ Continental Scandinavian
★
★
Danish
★
★
Norwegian
★
★
Swedish
★
★
Elfdalian
West Germanic
★
High German languages
★
★
Standard German (''
High German'')
★
★
Central German
★
★
★
East Central German
★
★
★
West Central German
★
★
★
★
Luxembourgish
★
★
Lower Silesian
★
★
Upper German
★
★
★
Alemannic German
★
★
★
★
Alsatian
★
★
★
Austro-Bavarian
★
★
★
Yiddish
★
Low Franconian
★
★
Dutch
★
Low German
★
★
West Low German
★
★
East Low German
★
Anglo-Frisian
★
★
Frisian
★
★
★
West Frisian
★
★
★
Saterland Frisian
★
★
★
North Frisian
★
★
Anglic (descending from
Anglo-Saxon)
★
★
★
Modern English
★
★
★
Modern Scots in
Scotland and
Ulster
★
★
★
Yola (extinct 19th century)
★
★
★
Hiberno-English
★
★
★
Shelta (mixed with Irish)
East Germanic
★
Gothic (extinct)
★
Burgundian (extinct)
★
Crimean Gothic (extinct in the
1800s)
★
Lombardic (extinct)
★
Vandalic (extinct)
Greek
★
Greek: official language of
Greece and
Cyprus; and small Greek-speaking enclaves in
Albania,
Bulgaria,
Italy,
FYROM,
Romania, and
Turkey, and in
Greek communities around the world.
Romance languages
The Romance languages descended from the
Vulgar Latin spoken across most of the lands of the
Roman Empire.
Latin is usually classified as an Italic language of which the Romance languages are a subgroup. It is extinct as a spoken language, but it is widely used as a liturgical language by the
Roman Catholic Church and studied in many educational institutions. It is also the official language of
Vatican City. Latin was the main language of literature, sciences and arts for many centuries and greatly influenced all European languages.
The
French language is official in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco, Switzerland and the Channel Islands. It is also official in Canada, many African countries and
overseas departments and territories of France.
The
Italian language is official in Italy, San Marino, Switzerland, Vatican and several regions of Croatia and Slovenia.
The
Romanian language is official in
Romania,
Moldova (as
Moldovan),
Mount Athos (Greece) and
Vojvodina (Serbia).
The
Spanish language is official in Spain. It is also spoken in the
Philippines and official in most
Latin American countries.
The
Portuguese language is official in Portugal. It is also official in
Brazil and several former Portuguese colonies in Africa and Eastern Asia.
The
Catalan language is official in Andorra,
Catalonia,
Valencian Community (as
Valencian),
Balearic Islands and several other regions.
All of the above languages are official in the European Union and the
Latin Union and they are studied in many educational institutions worldwide.
Many other Romance languages and their local varieties are spoken throughout Europe. Some of them are recognized as regional languages.
Romance languages are divided into many subgroups and dialects. For an exhaustive list, see
List of Romance languages.
Indo-Iranian languages
Indo-Aryan Languages
★
Romany
Iranian languages
★
Kurdish
★
Ossetian language
Slavic languages
West Slavic languages
★
Czech
★
Kashubian
★
Polish
★
Polabian (extinct)
★
Pomeranian (extinct)
★
Silesian
★
Slovak
★
Sorbian
★
★
Lower Sorbian
★
★
Upper Sorbian
East Slavic languages
★
Belarusian
★
Russian
★
Rusyn
★
★
Carpatho-Rusyn (Ruthenian)
★
★
Pannonian-Rusyn (Rusnak)
★
Ukrainian
South Slavic languages
★
Bulgarian
★
Croatian
★
Old Church Slavonic
★
Macedonian
★
Bosnian
★
Serbian
★
Slovene
★
Romano-Serbian (a
mixed language)
★
Serbo-Croatian language
General issues
Linguas Francas—past and present
Europe’s history is characterized by three
linguas francas:
★ (Medieval and Neo-)
Latin (from the Roman Empire until 1867, with
Hungary as the last country to give up Latin as an official language apart from the
Vatican City), with a gradual decline as lingua franca since the late
Middle Ages, when the
vernacular languages gained more and more importance (first language academy in Italy in 1582/83), in the 17th c. even at universities).
★
French (from the times of
Cardinal Richelieu and
Louis XIV, ca.
1648 (i.e. after the
Thirty Years' War, which had hardly affected
France, thus free to prosper), till the end of
World War I, ca.
1918)
★
English (mostly in its American form, since World War I and especially after
World War II).
Linguas francas that were characteristic of parts of Europe at some periods:
★
Classical Greek then
Koine Greek in the
Mediterranean Basin and later the
Roman Empire
★
Koine Greek and
Modern Greek, in the
Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire and other parts of the Balkans
[1]
★
Old French in all the western European countries (
England,
Italy), and in the
Crusader states
★
Provençal (=
Occitan) (12th--14th century, due to
Troubadour poetry)
★
Middle Low German (14th – 16th century, during the heyday of the
Hanseatic League)
★
Sabir, a Romance-based lingua franca used around the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages and early Modern Age.
★
German in Northern, Central, and Eastern Europe
[2]
★
Russian in
Eastern Europe from the
Second World War to the breakup of the
Soviet Union and the
Warsaw Pact
First dictionaries and grammars
The first type of dictionaries are glossaries, i.e. more or less structured lists of lexical pairs (in alphabetical order or according to conceptual fields). The Latin-German (Latin-Bavarian) Abrogans is among the first. A new wave of lexicography can be seen from the late 15th century onwards (after the introduction of the printing press, with the growing interest for standardizing languages).
Language and identity, standardization processes
In the Middle Ages the two most important definitory elements of Europe were Christianitas and Latinitas. Thus language—at least the supranational language—played an elementary role. This changed with the spread of the national languages in official contexts and the rise of a national feeling. Among other things, this led to projects of standardizing national language and gave birth to a number of language academies (e.g. 1582 Accademia della Crusca in Florence, 1617 Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, 1635 Académie française, 1713 Real Academia de la Lengua in Madrid). “Language” was then (and still ist today) more connected with “nation” than with “civilization” (particularly in France). “Language” was also used to create a feeling of “religious/ethnic identity” (e.g. different Bible translations by Catholics and Protestants of the same language).
Among the first standardization discussions and processes are the ones for Italian (“questione della lingua”: Modern Tuscan/Florentine vs. Old Tuscan/Florentine vs. Venetian > Modern Florentine + archaic Tuscan + Upper Italian), French (standard is based on Parisian), English (standard is based on the London dialect) and (High) German (based on: chancellery of Meißen/Saxony + Middle German + chancellery of Prague/Bohemia [“Common German”]). But also a number of other nations have begun to look for and develop a standard variety in the 16th century.
Treatment of linguistic minorities
Despite the tremendous importance of English, Europe is always associated with its linguistic diversity, which also includes the special protection of minority languages, ''e.g.'' by the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. This underlines that the popular view of “one nation = one language” is mostly false, despite attempts at national linguistic homogenization in France during the Revolution or in Franco's Spain or in contemporary Greece.
[3]
A minority language can be defined as a language used by a group that defines itself as an ethnic minority group, whereby the language of this group is typologically different and not a dialect of the standard language. In Europe some languages are in quite a strong position, in the sense that they are given special status, (''e.g.'' Basque, Irish, Welsh, Catalan, Rhaeto-Romance/Romansh), whereas others are in a rather weak position (''e.g.'' Frisian, Scottish Gaelic, Turkish)—especially allochthonous minority languages are not given official status in the EU (in part because they are not part of the cultural heritage of a civilization). Some minor languages don’t even have a standard yet, ''i.e.'' they have not even reached the level of an
ausbausprache yet, which could be changed, ''e.g.'', if these languages were given official status. (cf. also next section).
Issues in language politics
France is the origin of two laws, or decrees, concerning language: the
Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts (1539), which says that every document in France should be written in French (''i.e.'' not in Latin nor Occitan) and the
Loi Toubon (1994), which aims to eliminate Anglicisms from official documents. But Europe’s essentially characteristic feature is linguistic diversity and tolerance. An illustrative proof of the promotion of linguistic diversity is the translation school in Toledo, founded in the 12th century (in medieval Toledo the Christian, the Jewish and the Arab civilizations lived together remarkably peacefully).
This tolerant linguistic attitude is also the reason why the EU’s general rule is that every official national language is also an official EU language. However, Flemish (Southern Dutch, one official language of Belgium) and Letzebuergish/Luxemburgish are not official EU languages, because there are also other (stronger) official languages with “EU status” in the respective nations. Several concepts for a EU language policy are being debated:
★ one official language (e.g. English or Esperanto)
★ several official languages (e.g. English, French, German, Italian, Spanish + another topic-dependent language)
★ all national languages as official languages, but with a number of relais languages for translations (e.g. English or Esperanto as relais languages).
New immigrants in European countries are expected to learn the host nation's language, but are still speaking and reading their native languages (i.e. Arabic, Hindustani/Urdu, Mandarin Chinese, Swahili and Tahitian) in Europe's increasingly multiethnic/multicultural profile. But, those languages aren't native or indigenous to Europe, therefore aren't considered important in the issue of allowing them printed in European countries' official documents.
Notes
1. ''cf.'' Jireček Line;
"...Greek, the ''lingua franca'' of commerce and religion, provided a cultural unity to the Balkans...
Greek penetrated Moldavian and Wallachian territories as early as the fourteenth century....
The heavy influence of Greek culture upon the intellectual and academic life of Bucharest
and Jassy was longer termed than historians once believed." James Steve Counelis, ''review'' of Ariadna Camariano-Cioran, ''Les Academies Princieres de Bucarest et de Jassy et leur Professeurs'' ''in'' ''Church History'' '45':1:115-116 (March 1976) at JSTOR
2. Jeroen Darquennes and Peter Nelde, "German as a Lingua Franca", ''Annual Review of Applied Linguistics'' '26':61-77 (2006)
3. ''cf.'' Minorities in Greece
See also
★
Alphabetic list of living languages in Europe
★
Eurolinguistics
★
Languages of the European Union
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
