Languages

our living history

By European Commission translators

Tree vector by Vecteezy

The words we use in our language every day are our living history.
For the European Year of Cultural Heritage in 2018, the European
Commission’s translation department decided to celebrate
the EU’s 24 official languages with an article devoted to each.
The texts are all by EU translators, who were free to write them as they
liked. This resulted in a wide variety of styles and subjects – including
loanwords, literature and language history. Some articles were researched
with academic rigour, while others have a more humorous twist.
The authors have different stories to tell, but the love and pride they feel
for their mother tongue shines through.
Languages
our living history
2 3
Index
Bulgarian: a cosmic language 4
Czech – tough language, tough choices ahead… 6
Danish – a thousand years of ‘hygge’ 8
German – when Butterbrot means Heimat 10
Estonian – cultural heritage of a 100-year old nation 12
Greek: A journey through the ages 14
English, the untameable language 16
Castilian Spanish: a standard born out of translation 18
French comes from Latin, but where is it going? 20
Irish: listening backwards, looking forwards 22
Croatian: a delight for linguists? 24
Italian: striking a balance between promotion and preservation 26
From dainas to digital: the journey of Latvian 28
Celebrating the freedom to read and write in Lithuanian 30
Hungarian: Martian language or European melting pot? 32
Maltese: From survival to revival 34
In good company: wherever you go just speak Dutch 36
Polish - A difficult language? 38
The legacy of Arabic in Portuguese 40
Romanian: a bit of everything 42
What about learning Slovak? 44
Slovenian: mightier than the sword 46
Finnish – the long road from vernacular to European language 48
Fitting Swedish together: from ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚴ to IKEA 50
Languages
our living history
 Bulgarian: a cosmic language
Are you wondering why Bulgarian would be called a cosmic
language? The answer is simple: a recording of the Bulgarian
folk song Izlel ye Delyo Haydutin (Излел е Дельо хайдутин),
sung by Valya Balkanska, was included on one of the Golden
Records carried on board the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes.
These records – a kind of time capsule – contain sounds and
images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on
The language of today
Nowadays, Bulgarian is the mother tongue of approxi-
mately 9 million people, nearly 7 million of whom live
in Bulgaria. The others fall into two groups:
• historical Bulgarian minorities in other countries,
such as Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Hungary and
Serbia
• Bulgarians who have emigrated during the last three
decades, mostly to Greece, Italy, Spain, the UK,
Germany and the USA.
Interestingly, in addition to the Cyrillic alphabet used by
emerged that drew heavily on Church Slavonic / Old
Bulgarian (and to some extent on literary Russian, which
had preserved many lexical items from Church Slavonic).
The number of Turkish and other Balkan loan words later
diminished.
The language is split mainly into two broad dialect areas –
eastern and western – deriving from the different reflexes
of the Common Slavic yat vowel (Ѣ). This split occurred at
some point during the Middle Ages. The literary language
norm is generally based on the eastern dialects. There
are numerous jokes related to pronunciation differences
between these two groups.

Earth. They are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial
life forms or future humans who may find them. The song is
about Delyo, a Bulgarian rebel leader and protector of the local
population against the Ottoman rulers. He was active in the
Rhodope Mountains in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
In the beginning there was
Bulgarian
Of course, this is hardly the most important thing
to know about Bulgarian. Our language had a huge
historical impact throughout eastern Europe because it
was the first Slavic language – or more precisely dialect,
since research shows all Slavic peoples spoke the same
language at that time – attested in writing. Around
862–863 A.D., St Cyril devised the Glagolitic alphabet,
the first alphabet used to transcribe Old Church
Slavonic, on the basis of the Bulgarian dialect spoken in
his native Thessaloniki. He and his brother Methodius
were sent by the Byzantine Emperor to Great Moravia
to spread Christianity among the West Slavs in the
area. Created expressly for this purpose, the Glagolitic
alphabet was designed to match the specific features of
the Slavic language. The two missionaries began the task
of translating the Bible and other religious documents
and books into that language, now known as Old
Bulgarian or Old Church Slavonic.
Ages. However, it continued to be used in Croatia until
the mid-20th century for liturgical purposes. Cyrillic, on
the other hand, is used today by more than 300 million
people across the world and is the official alphabet in
Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Serbia,
Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and North Macedonia.
the huge majority of Bulgarian‑speakers, there is also a
Bulgarian dialect that uses the Latin graphic system. This
is the Banat Bulgarian dialect, officially spoken by 8 000
people in Romania and Serbia (or 15 000 according to
some estimates).
During its different historical stages the Bulgarian
language underwent many changes. In marked contrast to
the other Slavic languages, it lost the Slavonic case system
but preserved the rich verb system. A definite article
also appeared. Bulgarian was influenced first by Greek
(grammatically and lexically) and later by Turkish (mostly
lexically), the official language of the Ottoman Empire.
Thanks to a national revival during the 18th and 19th
centuries, a modern Bulgarian literary language gradually
Literature and science
The most prominent Bulgarian writer is considered
to be Ivan Vazov (1850 1921). Vazov, a poet, novelist
and playwright, is often referred to as the ‘Patriarch of
Bulgarian literature’. His works (the most famous being
the novel Under the Yoke), often depicting the Bulgarian
revolutionary movement, have been translated into over
30 languages. In 1917 he was nominated for the Nobel
Prize in literature. Modern writers not to be missed
include Yordan  Radichkov (Nobel Prize nominee in
2001), Valeri  Petrov (also a prominent translator of
Shakespeare), Angel  Wagenstein ( Jean  Monnet Prize
for European literature in 2004), Vladimir  Zarev,
Georgi Gospodinov and Milen Ruskov.
And back again to technology: as well as the folk song
included on one of the Golden Records on board
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, Bulgarian has another striking
link to modernity. Not so many people know that
the first electronic digital computer was invented by
John   Atanasoff, an American-Bulgarian physicist and
inventor. He designed the device in the 1930s with the
assistance of his graduate student Clifford  Berry. The
Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC) used binary maths
and Boolean logic to solve up to 29 simultaneous linear
equations. Following long patent disputes, Atanasoff ’s
invention was officially recognised in 1973 by a US federal
judge. During his first visit to Bulgaria, Atanasoff received
the Order of Cyril and Methodius, First Class – Bulgaria’s
highest scientific honour.

However, probably owing to its complexity, Glagolitic Author: Yordan Predov

was gradually superseded by the Cyrillic alphabet. Based
on the Glagolitic, Cyrillic was designed and spread in the
First Bulgarian Empire at the end of the 9th century and Saints Cyril et Methodius, Alphonse Mucha.
the beginning of the 10th by St Kliment and St Naum Credits: jorisvo Adobe Stock
(disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius) of the Ohrid and
Preslav literary schools. The use of the Glagolitic alphabet
declined, becoming very limited by the end of the Middle

Languages Languages
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 Czech – tough language, tough
choices ahead…
Let’s not beat around the bush: Czech is a very difficult
language. This is something both native speakers and
learners of Czech readily agree on.
You would probably now expect me to start qualifying
this dogmatic statement by pointing out that things are
never so clear‑cut, that it all depends on one’s perspective,
and so on and so forth.
Well, no. Czech really is a very difficult language, even
for native speakers, notwithstanding long hours spent
hunched over grammar and stylistics in primary and
secondary school. To master these, kids need to spend
many years reading and writing in their native Czech.
Like a phoenix from the ashes
One reason is the very complex stylistics of the Czech
language. Its vocabulary is richer than that of other Slavic
languages, as it is in fact a ‘reborn’ language.
The Thirty Years’ War in the first half of the 17th century
effectively put an end to the Czech élite class. The
Czech-speaking aristocracy suffered execution, expulsion
and expropriation and was consequently relegated to
the margins of society. Literary production in Czech
diminished dramatically and the language ceased to
play any role in administration, even at a local level. The
number of speakers shrank, especially in towns.
After 150 years, this trend changed. The political and
cultural developments during the Enlightenment brought
not only more intense pressure for Germanisation, but
also – paradoxically – much greater means to oppose it.
Czech linguists decided it was time to work on their
language regaining the prestige it had enjoyed during its
Golden Age. They were convinced of its richness and that,
if only it could be restored to its former glory, there was
nothing it could not express. They focused on Czech or
Slavic vocabulary, and created new words using the means
Czech has at its disposal.
This was a relatively easy task, as Czech morphology has
an abundance of affixes, more systematised than in other
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Slavic languages. In fact, it is not strange for a Czech
speaker to create new words on the spot – and not even
be considered particularly creative for doing so.
Borrowing for nuance
Czech is not unusual in borrowing many words from
other languages, but they coexist with their synonyms of
Czech origin. Foreign borrowings often take on a slightly
different meaning or register.
For example, výroba is used to denote ‘production’ when
there is a manufacturing component present. It can never
be used if the product is an animal or a plant – in this case
we use the borrowing produkce, whose meaning is wider.
The Czech word skličující (depressing) is rarely used, as it is
considered too strong. In contrast, the English borrowing
depresivní is very common. The fact that it is derived from
a substantive makes it more general – whatever we’re
talking about is seen as generally depressing for everyone.
This includes the speaker, of course, but the meaning is
less strong.
The French borrowing deprimující is often used too.
Because it is derived from a verb, the focus is on the
state or action in question, with the implication that the
speaker is more heavily affected.
Does anyone actually speak
standard Czech?
Another reason for the complexity of Czech stylistics
is a wide range of register. The standard language still
enjoys a strong position in administration and the
media, but differs considerably from colloquial language.
Regional variations make this knotty situation even more
complicated.
Traditional Czech puppets.Credits: Stéphan Szeremeta Adobe Stock
Although Prague is the natural centre of the Czech lands,
today’s standard Czech would resemble Prague speech
only if you hopped into a time machine and went back
several centuries. The speech variety heard in Prague
today (and in more or less the whole of Bohemia –
some 6 million people out 10.5 million Czech-speakers
overall) is usually called obecná čeština (general Czech).
It differs from standard Czech in many ways, especially
phonetically and morphologically.
There is no such dialectal unity in Moravia and Czech
Silesia. The variety spoken in the western part of this
area features phonetic changes of the same type as heard
in Bohemia – but even more radical. The eastern regions
boast two interdialects, which are completely unrelated to
the phonetic innovations of Bohemian speech and are, on
the whole, more closely related to the standard language.
If we had to pinpoint where in today’s Czech Republic
we might find the colloquial speech variety which most
resembles standard Czech, it would have to be the town
of Kunovice in south-east Moravia.
Languages
our living history
A momentous linguistic decision
The dichotomy between standard Czech and general
Czech is a real hot potato in Czech linguistic circles
today. There appears to be growing pressure to ditch the
current standard Czech and make general Czech the new
standard language.
But this would be far from easy. Although Bohemian
speakers are having more and more trouble expressing
themselves correctly in the standard language, their
own speech variety nevertheless features many standard
elements. This mixture is, in fact, a highly complex
structure in terms of register. Czechs with a very good
command of the language can use this complexity to their
advantage and express themselves with great subtlety and
nuance.
The choice is a difficult one. Will the complexity of
standard Czech finally become unbearable and lead
Czechs to abandon it? Or would that course of action
prove even more complex than the language itself ?
We shall have to wait and see...
Author: Martin Kukal
Danish – a thousand years of ‘hygge’
Spoken by around six million people, Danish is one of
the smaller European languages. Besides being the official
language of Denmark, it is spoken and taught in Iceland,
Greenland and the Faroe Islands. It also holds the status of
a minority language in the region of Southern Schleswig in
northern Germany.
It is a North Germanic language and a
descendant of Old Norse, the common
language of the Germanic peoples who lived in
Scandinavia during the Viking era. It has strong
similarities with both Swedish and Norwegian,
although our sister nations will often argue that
Danish is by far the most difficult to understand.
This is probably true; linguists consider Danish
to be the Scandinavian language that has
evolved the furthest from Old Norse.
Twist (your tongue) and
shout
Danish grammar is quite simple compared
with other languages. The trouble non‑native
speakers encounter when trying to learn
Danish is mainly the pronunciation. The
alphabet consists of 29 letters: the Roman
alphabet plus the three additional letters Æ, Ø
and Å, giving a total of nine vowels. However,
these can be pronounced in many different
ways, making for dozens of vowel sounds, and
Danes tend to ‘swallow’ consonants when
speaking. Consequently, Danish words are
rarely pronounced the way they are written. It
is no wonder that some foreigners think Danes
sound like they have a potato in their throat.
Since the early 1900s a popular Danish
shibboleth – a phrase native speakers can
say easily and foreigners cannot say at all –
has been rødgrød med fløde [ˈʁœðˀˌɡ̊ʁœðˀ
mɛ ˈfløːð̩] (‘red groats with cream’, a famous
Danish dessert). Danes usually find it very
Languages
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amusing to make foreigners struggle with this
tongue‑twister. It features many of the elements
that make Danish difficult for non‑native
speakers, especially the vowel ø and the weakly
pronounced d.
Top exports
Danish has left its mark on other languages.
A picture from the Viking burial ground Lindholm Høje in Denmark near Aalborg. Credits: shootingtheworld Adobe Stock
English contains hundreds of loan words from
Old Norse brought by our Viking ancestors
when they crossed the North Sea to conquer Conversely, as is the case with most languages, Over the past 100 years, we Danes have chosen
new territories. These include ‘law’ (lag), ‘take’ Danish has evolved and been influenced by a more peaceful way of spreading our language
(taka) and ‘window’ (vindauga). During the other languages over the centuries. The first around the world than our Viking ancestors,
Viking Age (approx. 800‑1050 AD) a large strong influence began in the Middle Ages, namely through cinema. From the silent movies
number of Danish – and Norwegian – Vikings with North Germanic dialects. Later, French, of Carl Theodor Dreyer to today’s blockbusters
raided and eventually settled in northern and English, Latin and Greek affected and even by Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg and
eastern England. Their presence influenced shaped the Danish language as we know it Susanne Bier, Danish film has captured a
both the regional language and the English today. According to Dansk Sprognævn (the worldwide audience alongside Nordic Noir
language as a whole. Of the 5 000 basic words Danish Language Council) more than 80% of series such as The Killing. While hygge may be
in English, it is estimated that as many as 20% the new words and expressions incorporated difficult to define, it could well involve relaxing
are loan words from Old Norse. English would into Danish since the end of the Second World on a sofa in a cosy corner with some Danish
not contain dramatic words like ‘berserk’ or War are exclusively English in origin. Most movies.
‘skull’ had it not been for the Danes. have been translated into Danish, including
‘countdown’ (nedtælling), ‘clown’ (klovn) and Author: Amalie Søvang
The Danish influence may be a bit more
‘banana republic’ (bananrepublik). Others are
modest (and innocent!) nowadays, although
loan words, such as ‘weekend’, ‘blog’, ‘facilitator’,
Danish words still manage to sneak into the
‘gentleman’ and ‘service’). This ‘anglification’ of
English language now and again. Take for
Danish makes some people fear for its future.
instance the word hygge [ˈhyːɡə], which in
However, considering that we have already been
recent years has become ubiquitous and even
under strong linguistic influences for more than
entered the Oxford English Dictionary in
1 000 years, Danish just might survive a bit
2016. It is defined as the practice of creating
longer, using a rather different vessel than the
cosy and congenial environments that promote
Viking longboats.
emotional well‑being.
Languages
our living history
 German – when Butterbrot
means Heimat
It is one of the myths of our time that German
is a difficult language. In fact, it’s as easy as pie
to master the language of Luther, Gutenberg
and Goethe – and the Brothers Grimm, for that
matter.
Just take compounds such as
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. Or
Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung.
It may be impossible to explain their meaning without exceeding the
stipulated maximum length of this article, but creating them is no big deal.

Suffice it to say that you just link one noun to another
noun to another noun, sprinkling a pinch of genitive
over the whole thing, and abracadabra – 63 characters,
67 characters, even 104 characters if you wish, are neatly
wrapped up in a single, simple word.
Why be reluctant to try out a language that offers as many
as four plural options for one singular noun – that way, it’s
almost impossible to go wrong (even though the meaning
of the chosen plural might differ slightly from what you
meant to say, but that’s a mere detail).
Take Band:
• Bänder (if we’re talking about Band in the sense of
ribbon or ligament)
• Bände (if you’re referring to the volumes on your
bookshelves)
• Bande (the strong bonds that exist between family
members)
• Bands (pronounced ‘bents’) if you’re using the
English loan word band for a rock group).
So many German‑speakers…
About 130 million people in the world speak German as
their mother tongue (and believe me, even we struggle
with plurals, articles and our four cases) or as a second
language. It is the language with the most native speakers
in the EU, and the (or an) official language in seven
countries: Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Switzerland,
Italy, Belgium and Liechtenstein. About 7.5 million
people belong to German‑speaking minorities, spread
over 42 countries.
… and so very many words
While the average German-speaker uses only about
12 000 to 16 000 words, she or he could potentially draw
on no fewer than 23 million lexemes, according to the
findings of the Duden editorial team in 2017 (the Duden
being something like the Bible of the German language).
And these are only the basic forms (Grundformen) –
without any tricky compound magic.
You may not even know you’re
using it
Even if German is not your mother tongue or one of
your foreign languages, you may have used German
vocabulary quite fluently without being aware of it.
What about kaffeeklatsching over cookies and cake
with your friends in the USA? Complaining about the
besservisseri (know‑all tendency) of your neighbour in
Helsinki? Would you schubladiser (postpone) something
you don’t want to do in the south of France? Be a szlafmyca
(sleepyhead) in your szlafrok (nightgown) in Warsaw or
Kraków?
Goethe in der römischen Campagna, ca. 1787.Credits: driesen-verlag.de Adobe Stock
Words on a journey Butterbrot emigrated to Russia (though including a slice
of bread in this selection may reflect the writer’s individual
Lehnwörter (loan words) are of course a common attachment to the word). Then there’s Heimat, apparently
phenomenon in nearly all languages. Most have words popular among some Flemish people because, so they say,
that have entered the language as Lehnwörter, while other there’s no Flemish/Dutch equivalent.
words have emigrated, becoming loan words elsewhere.
Heimat: an indefinable mélange of home and homeland
German, for example, makes particularly extensive use of and home country. Butterbrot looks like the easiest word
Lehnwörter from French and English.
to translate: a slice of bread and butter. But only at first
The writer of this article is firmly convinced that words sight, because somehow, a serious Butterbrot is so much
more than just that. It’s Heimat, basically.
which travel (sometimes around the world in the true
sense of the word) have a lot to tell us about the people(s)
they originate from. Author: Andrea Lietz‑Schneider
Apart from technology-induced vocabulary like Freude  
am Fahren (‘joy of driving’ in the USA), the schiebedach
(sun roof ) that’s also known in Farsi, and autobahn, or
volksfest-heavy words like gemutlichkeit, bratwurst and
schnapps, it seems to be the presumed German inclination
to sentimentality that is reflected most often in German
émigré words.
Spellings vary, which is why I’ve used the original German
versions here: Heimweh. Weltschmerz. Katzenjammer.
(Although having a Katzenjammer can also just mean
being hung‑over – but even then there’s more to it).

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Estonian – cultural heritage
of a 100‑year old nation
Estonia is one of the smallest EU Member States, with
roughly 1 million native speakers. This means the percentage
of Estonians translating for the EU is quite high — around
200, or 0.02% of the overall language community. Onerous
as this is, nobody would claim it’s not really worth it.
Even more than the people of other, bigger nations,
Estonians are well aware of the value and specificity
of their language. Alongside Finnish and Hungarian,
Estonian belongs to the Finno‑Ugric language family,
which differs in many respects from the Indo‑European
languages that represent the majority of the languages
spoken in the EU.
E for Estonia, E for Europe
On 24 February 2018, the Republic of Estonia celebrated
its 100th anniversary, but the story of the Estonian
language goes back much further. Both in Europe and
worldwide, UNESCO recognises the role of language in
a community’s cultural heritage. In Estonia’s case, identity
is intimately bound up with language. The roots of the
idiom spoken today in the northernmost of the three
Baltic States go back as far as remote European prehistory,
but it is precisely with the meticulous, centuries-long
development of the language that the story of the
Estonian nation begins.
Languages
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12
It was mainly German-speaking clergymen who first
described the language of Estonians, followed later by
native Estonians of peasant origin. In the second half of
the 19th century, the Estonian population had relatively
high literacy levels compared with other European
societies. More recently – before and immediately after the
proclamation of independence – the common linguistic
challenge became more stark, as the newly formed nation
needed a decent language, capable of meeting the highest
educational and cultural needs. A model was found in the
modern European culture of the time.
‘Let us remain Estonians, but let us also become
Europeans!’ goes the maxim from the poet and writer
Gustav Suits, one of the masterminds of the neo-romantic
Young Estonia movement, active in the first decades of
the last century.
A language fit for its new nation
With the newly formed nation state, the development of
the Estonian language became more down‑to‑earth – an
enormous effort was made to start using Estonian in
all areas of science and administration. In addition
to the need for scientific and administrative
vocabulary in Estonian, university courses also
now needed to be read in Estonian.
The approach was twofold: alongside the
language management movement, concerned
mainly with creating new scientific vocabulary
and standardising variant uses of words, a more
ambitious and innovative process began: language
innovation. The latter, run mainly by one central
figure – the Latinist and Francophile Johannes
Aavik - looked down on practical goals and aimed
mainly at elegance and euphony. Innovation
Ornamental blue cornflower, national flower of
Estonia Credits: Zenina Adobe Stock
Flags of Estonia and European Union. Credits: ilolab Adobe Stock
involved not only coining new, more harmonious words,
but also modernising Estonian grammar, drawing mainly
on historical forms, dialects and related languages, such
as Finnish. New word forms were introduced (for plural
and superlative), and even new grammatical categories
created, such as the translative form of the supine –
frequently used today in many EU documents translated
into Estonian.
By the end of the 1920s, a newly standardised language
was finally fixed and made compulsory for all types of
official use, as well as for education. Today, the Estonian
language is fully developed and can enjoy all the privileges
of any other European language, but also has to face the
threats: for instance, the danger of being excessively
influenced by bigger languages, especially English.
EU protects – including its
languages
From a broader perspective, EU membership has been
hugely beneficial for the Estonian language, guaranteeing
its resilience. At the beginning of the new millennium,
as is the case everywhere else, English is being used more
and more in Estonia in areas such as business, education,
governance and entertainment. Being a member of the
EU helps Estonia keep this tendency under some sort of
control.
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13
That said, all the younger generations of Estonians
speak excellent English. This clearly reflects one of the
established goals of EU language policy – and many
young Estonians also speak German, Russian or French.
The value and importance for the EU of every single one
of its languages, and of diversity in general, has often
been highlighted. However, in the context of cultural
heritage, diversity has even wider implications, providing
new, unexpected responses to old, worn‑out questions.
It means being prepared to offer new solutions when
necessary, even if they’re not initially welcomed. Yet we
must also be aware that, at its most effective, real diversity
can easily lead to conflict or misunderstanding. All the
more so now that we are entering a completely new era
where the fundamentals of any linguistic communication
will go through the deepest imaginable transformation.
It is hard to predict to what extent artificial intelligence
will take control of our linguistic realities. How will this
affect the way we handle our heritage and, as part of that,
linguistic diversity?
The outlook is as uncertain – and, at the same time, as
intriguing – as always. Still, all these risks should be faced
calmly. Europe needs its plethora of languages, but for a
language to be operational and meaningful, it cannot be
reduced to a slice of immaterial heritage. Among other
things, diversity also needs to be used as a political tool
for resistance and compromise. After all, it is language
and diversity that make any compromise possible at all.
Author: Rita Niineste
Greek: A journey through the ages
‘[The Greek people] created philosophy’ means inextricably: they
created the language of philosophy and the language of thought,
or, better still, they created their language as a language that
contains and gestates philosophical questions and thought. […]
Such a language is, in a way, already potentially philosophy.
These words belong to the 20th-century Greek-
French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis,
who also argued that thought cannot exist
without language, and vice versa, the two being
intimately linked.
Words such as ‘logic’, ‘idea’, ‘theory’, ‘politics’
and ‘democracy’ were crafted in Greek; it may
also be argued that their meaning, too, was
created through it. They, and many more like
them, were passed on like a torch from one
generation to the next, helping human thinking
to evolve.
The voyage is a long one…
Greek has been spoken uninterruptedly in the
regions that are now Greece and Cyprus for
more than 3 000 years. Written records of the
language go back to approximately 1 500 BCE
for Greece and 1 100 BCE for Cyprus. These
records are in Linear B and its cousin, the
Cypriot syllabary – both writing systems that
represent open syllables rather than individual
sounds.
In the 8th century BCE, the Greeks adopted
the Phoenician alphabet, which had signs
for consonants only. They went on to make a
revolutionary addition: signs for vowels. Thus
emerged the Greek alphabet, which would
later serve as the basis for other major writing
systems, including the Latin and Cyrillic
alphabets.
Greek is still used, along with Latin, to coin
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14
new scientific or technological terms whenever
the need arises. Not all Greek loans to other
languages are as prestigious as those found
in academic vocabulary, though. Many are
everyday words, such as butter, Polizei, piazza
and botica. Others again have travelled not only
in space but also in time, returning to Greek
through other European languages.
Still, since Greek is a living language, it not
only lends but also borrows. It has incorporated
French, English, Italian, Turkish, Arabic and
even Persian words, often giving them new
meanings and sometimes passing them on, as
when it took the Persian word for ‘park’ and
created ‘paradise’.
…full of adventures
None of this happened in a vacuum: there was a
time when one of the variants of Greek, Koine
or the ‘common language’, was used as a lingua
franca in the wider Mediterranean area and
beyond. Many works that greatly influenced
Western civilisation were written in Koine
Greek, including those of Plutarch and the New
Testament. The Old Testament was translated
from Hebrew into it. Students learned it in
universities.
Later, at the time of the Byzantine and then
the Ottoman Empire, literary production
continued, both ecclesiastical and secular.
However, the written word was very
conservative, usually differing from the spoken
language, which had continued to develop.
Statue of Demokritus,ancient greek philosopher. Credits: markara on Adobe Stock
There were, of course, exceptions, such as Erotokritos, an …full of discovery
epic love story with French influences, written by the
16th-century Cretan poet Vitsentzos Kornaros in the Yet the journey of Greek through the ages was not without
vernacular of his time. In medieval Cyprus, Leontios turbulence: there was a time when the written word was
Machairas recorded history, while poets wrote beautiful out of step with the ever-changing spoken language. This
sonnets with an Italian touch. created some problems, particularly in Greece, but they
The language of all these works represents a natural were finally resolved in 1976.
progression from Koine Greek, and Modern Greek Cypriots and Greeks alike have been using their vernacular
speakers understand it with little or no effort. for many decades now, producing significant works
that have been widely translated. The many prominent
Meanwhile, people from both Greece and Cyprus would
authors include Constantine Cavafy, Nikos Kazantzakis,
flock to other parts of Europe to live, study and write.
Kyriakos Charalambides and – most importantly – poets
Many would later return, bringing with them a wealth
George Seferis and Odysseas Elytis, Nobel laureates in
of knowledge. With their contribution, when the Greek
literature.
state was established in 1827, universities were founded
and people became reacquainted with Plato, Aristotle, Greek continues on its journey to this day, alongside the
Euripides and many more: this time, knowledge was other members of its European family. In the words of
not to be limited to the few. More people studied, went Constantine Cavafy in his poem ‘Ithaca’, here’s wishing
abroad and returned to help create a modern European that the voyage will be a long one, full of adventure, full
state. of discovery.
Author: Stamatina Salogianni
Languages
our living history
15
English, the untameable language
‘It’s a hassle to kow-tow to soi-disant cognoscenti who think they’re
the cat’s pyjamas, robotically issuing phoney diktats of grammatical
rectitude. Ignore them! No one owns English.’

That plea for English liberation incorporates echoes of
Latin, Greek, German, Irish, Czech, Persian, Italian,
French, Chinese and Guarani. Openness to new
influences is a defining feature of the English language. As
the renowned scholar David Crystal says, ‘the language
has always been on the move’.
The word ‘English’ refers to the Angles who, along with
the Saxons and Jutes, began crossing the North Sea to
what is now England, following the fall of the Roman
Empire. They brought with them their dialects of the
West Germanic group of Indo-European languages.
These developed into the language called Old English,
also known as Anglo-Saxon, from which the epic poem
Beowulf was wrought. However, in 1066, a sea-change
occurred. England was conquered by the Normans, or
‘Norsemen’, a people of Viking origin who had settled in
France.
A dialect of French was now imposed on England as
the official language. As Romance met Germanic, a new
linguistic creation emerged: Middle English. This was the
language of Chaucer’s rip-roaring Canterbury Tales and
Sir Thomas Malory’s chivalric Morte d’Arthur.
Standardisation of pronunciation and spelling over time
led to the development of Modern English. It is estimated
that, by the end of the 16th century, this English was
spoken by between 5 and 7 million people, almost all of
whom lived in the British Isles.
The spread of English
Not confined to North America, the English language also
spread to Oceania, the Caribbean and parts of Africa and
Asia. Today, it is an official language in some 55 sovereign
states and de facto official language in numerous others.
India has no national language, but the Indian
Constitution allows for English to be used for official
business. According to UN data, the population of
India is currently around 1.35 billion. To take the most
conservative estimate of 5% of the population, English
speakers would number over 67 million in India alone.
The true figure may be far higher.
Undeniably it was the dark forces of colonialism, peaking
in the 19th century, that led to English being the world’s
third most common mother tongue today, after Chinese
and Spanish. The 20th century saw the emergence of a new
driver: the positioning of the USA as the world’s leading
economic power.
Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer
It is, of course, impossible to quantify the number of Credits: Heater Adobe Stock
people around the world who speak English as a second
language. For a more manageable number, try instead
to think of an industry, discipline or activity that is not linguistic flexibility where it is. ‘The British are Europe’s founding father of the European Union, and for many
dominated by English at international level. language dunces,’ he laments, far less capable of learning other highs and lows of an eventful career, Churchill
other languages than their European neighbours. Worst wrote a four‑volume work entitled A History of the
A mixed blessing of all, ‘even the French are twice as good at it as we are’. English‑speaking Peoples. He was also awarded the Nobel
Prize in Literature, in 1953.
So do native speakers enjoy an unfair advantage by being The English journey In this, he was in good company. Up to 2019, over a
spared the need to invest time and money learning other quarter of Nobel laureates in literature wrote in English.
Linguistic control long since slipped its setting in the
languages? In her book English as a Lingua Franca: This compares with around 10% each for French, German
Attitude and Identity, Professor Jennifer Jenkins refers to silver sea. English has become a world language and can
a 1998 initiative of the British Government to capitalise be seen as the world’s property. There is no authority to
and Spanish, with far fewer in a further 25 languages.

The language kept moving, this time across the Atlantic.
In 1607, an English settlement was established in
Jamestown, the first in America. By 1640, some 25 000
anglophones had joined.
Immigration to the United States continued over the
coming centuries, with significant numbers from Scotland
and Ireland. Speakers of other languages were also arriving,
and indeed lived there already, but widespread linguistic
assimilation took place. At the turn of the millennium,
the census showed that around 215 million US citizens
spoke English at home.
by promoting English as the global lingua franca.
Commenting on the initiative’s limited success, the
professor quotes an article from the Observer newspaper in
2005 which claimed that Korean Airlines ‘chose a French
supplier for its flight simulators because its “offshore”
international English was more comprehensible and
clearer than that of the UK competitor’.
That article appears under the dramatic headline ‘English,
language of lost chance’. The author, Simon Caulkin,
bewails the ‘curse of not having to learn another tongue
to get by’. This, he claims, leads to avoidance of trading
with countries where English is not spoken, and a lack of
police English, no academy to impose false notions of The countries of origin of those laureates were, in
purity. Efforts to lay down the linguistic law are met with alphabetical order: Australia, Canada, India, Ireland,
indifference, if not ridicule. Nigeria, Saint Lucia, South Africa, Trinidad & Tobago,
United Kingdom, United States and Zimbabwe.
A wholly apocryphal, but nonetheless amusing, anecdote
concerns the idea that sentences in English should never English has indeed come a very long way, but what
end with a preposition. An over‑zealous sub‑editor does the future hold? Will the language gain even more
attempting to impose this rule provoked an outraged speakers, or will another lingua franca take its place? Will
author to declare it ‘the sort of arrant pedantry up with technology replace human communication all together?
which I will not put’. Predictions abound but, to quote another of those Nobel
laureates: ‘The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.’
That witty, but unattributable, line is often associated
with Winston Churchill. Remembered now as a
Author: Michelle Homden

Languages Languages
our living history our living history
16 17
Castilian Spanish: a standard born
out of translation
Until the 18th century, travellers passing through Catholic
and post‑Reformation Protestant lands would use Latin
to communicate with local clergy and educated lay people.
With one notable exception, however: in Portugal and the
kingdoms of Castile and Aragón, Catalan, Portuguese and,
more especially, Castilian were the languages of literature,
government and science.
Why was Spanish so prominent? Well, it could be
that it had assumed the role of Latin long before the
Renaissance, and in such a comprehensive manner that
it had left little room for Latin and other international
languages. And it was perhaps translation more than
anything else that had made this possible.
Once upon a time
By the 13th century, the Kingdom of Castile, which had
begun life as a small county on the Cantabrian Sea, had
incorporated the former kingdom of León, together
with a few Muslim kingdoms in central and southern
Hispania, including Toledo. As a result, the Castilian
variant of Spanish rapidly expanded throughout Castile
(and León), which at the time was far more unified
internally than other political entities in Western Europe.
Castilian became rather uniform: the standard language
of the royal court was widely spoken, and the geographical
and social divides affecting other European languages were
avoided. Although it has regional differences, especially
in pronunciation, Castilian Spanish does not have patois
or dialetti. Moreover, the traditional similarity in the
language spoken by courtiers and commoners helped to
erase class distinctions from a linguistic perspective.
Meanwhile, the worlds of law, philosophy and science
needed an abstract Castilian vocabulary. This task was
taken on by an exceptional monarch, Alfonso X, rightly
called the Wise. In his highly cosmopolitan court, often
meeting in Toledo, he encouraged learning with few
ethnic prejudices. Since science was more advanced in
the Muslim lands than in Europe, he invited Muslim
and Jewish scholars to his court and gave them and their
languages prominent cultural roles.
Languages
our living history
18
No need for Latin
Whereas Latin was the only language deemed suitable for
higher learning in most European kingdoms, in Castile
the situation was very different. Jews used Hebrew for
religious purposes, but classical Arabic for science and
philosophy (Maimonides being a famous case in point).
The sizeable Muslim population living in central and
southern Castile used the same form of Arabic in all
aspects of daily life. Even Christians in Toledo used
classical Arabic, as contemporary documents from
religious communities show.
Muslim science was being imparted to European
Christian scholars through translations from the Arabic
originals into Latin, with Castilian as the intermediary.
The usual practice was for a Jewish scholar to translate the
Arabic text into Castilian orally, and a Castilian‑speaking
Christian scholar would then translate the oral version
into written Latin. Alfonso X simplified this cumbersome
process by getting rid of the Latin translation, at least in
some instances. Arabic texts were translated into Castilian
in written form as well.
The language was already being extensively used in
literature, as classic poems such as the epic 12th‑century
Song of My Cid demonstrate. However, it was a novelty
in Europe for astronomical texts to be drafted in (or
translated into) the vernacular. Books on the properties of
gemstones, and on chess and other board games (Libro de
axedrez, dados e tablas, or Book of Chess, Dice and Tables),
were also written in Castilian using Arabic originals.
Portada de Las Siete Partidas de Alfonso X el Sabio.
Credits: Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons
A language for all
It may be that Alfonso X saw Castilian as a neutral
language for the three main religions in his kingdom. Jews
seem to have been especially influential at his court. The
king commissioned a history of the world and a history of
Hispania/Spain (focusing on Castile), mainly from Latin
sources, including the biblical Vulgata. His subjects could
then read their history in their own language, and this in a
highly learned prose that would serve as a model for later
historians and writers.
Even more significant was the translation of the Visigothic
Code, Liber iudiciorum, under the title of Fuero Juzgo.
This inspired the Partidas code establishing a uniform
body of law for the kingdom, later applied to its colonies
as well. Although it was replaced by the Napoleonic Code
and local variants, it still informed some principles of
modern legislation, including the law of royal succession
in Spain’s modern constitutions.
Languages
our living history
19
Its cultural significance is also
considerable: this book of laws was
so encompassing in its approach
that the Partidas can be read
as an encyclopedic treatise on
medieval manners and world view.
Furthermore, the laws are presented
in an artful, adroitly structured way,
using beautiful language.
Thanks to this book – and to the
originals and translations sponsored
and, it seems, even stylistically
improved by King Alfonso X
himself – Castilian Spanish became
a language that could convey ideas,
laws and scientific data with perfect
ease.
From then on, Latin seemed
unnecessary for the inhabitants of
the kingdom. Castilian had taken
its place. The Spanish could study the stars and use
their language to communicate their findings, while
Copernicus and Newton still had to turn to Latin.
Of course, as the language has evolved, so have some of
Alfonso X’s standards been affected. The deep phonetic
changes in Castilian during the 16th and 17th centuries
brought about a spelling reform in the early 18th century,
replacing the previous spelling standard based on the
practice codified under Alfonso X. That standard has
evolved and become richer, but nothing has defined it as
fundamentally as the work undertaken and completed by
Alfonso X and his court.
Other European languages drew on biblical translations
for this work. For the language of Alfonso the Wise,
translations of historical, legal and scientific texts were
the inspiration.
Author: Mariano Martín Rodríguez
French comes from Latin,
but where is it going?
French is a Latin language, as are several other EU official languages
(Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian) and a number of co‑official
(Catalan and Galician) or regional languages. It has been the official
language of France since 1539. Modern French is the result of the
codification of the langue d’oïl spoken in the Île‑de‑France region.
Very slowly, it spread to all parts of the French-speaking
world. According to linguist Mathieu Avanzi: ‘While
the French Royal Court is thought to have spoken
French as early as the 16th century in southern France,
French‑speaking Switzerland and Wallonia, French did
not permanently supplant local languages and dialects
in southern France, French‑speaking Switzerland and
Wallonia […] until after the Second World War.’
French, but which variety?
French is the official language of three EU Member States
(Belgium, France and Luxembourg), and of the Valle
d’Aosta autonomous region of Italy. Only one official
‘standard’ variety exists: the French spoken in France,
which has been regulated by the Académie française since
1635. Belgian translators, for example (including the
author of this text), have learnt right from primary school
not to commit the sin of using ‘Belgicisms’.
Nevertheless, local accents and regional differences
persist, especially when it comes to colloquial vocabulary.
In Brussels, people buy couques (croissants/pastries) from
the bakery in the morning, or a waffle sprinkled with sucre
impalpable (icing sugar, or sucre glace in Standard French).
As each country has its own legal, administrative and
judicial system, there are often parallel official terms, to
which the EU may – occasionally – add a further variant.
One example is tax ruling, which in France is rescrit fiscal,
in Belgium décision anticipée, and in Luxembourg ruling
fiscal. The EU has opted for décision fiscale anticipée, but in
general simply uses tax ruling in French as well.
While there is no question that French has been
standardised and unified as a result of several centuries of
centralisation, in recent decades the pendulum has begun
to swing the other way, with greater openness to regional
variations. This is being acknowledged by lexicologists:
each year, the neologisms added to reference dictionaries
include their fair share of francophonismes.
Languages
our living history
20
The preface to the 2002 Petit Larousse says this: ‘The
French language belongs to those who speak, write and
enrich it all over the world, including the provinces of
France, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg, Quebec,
the Caribbean, Oceania, the Indian Ocean, sub‑Saharan
Africa and numerous Arab countries. There is not so much
a central French as a French language that is enriched both
by its unity and by its regional variations.’
Provincial pride coming to the fore
This change in attitude also applies to the regionalisms of
metropolitan France. With renewed pride, people from
the provinces are now demanding recognition of the
legitimacy of their local expressions or regional languages.
And the authorities are granting their demands, at
least to some extent. In 2001, for example, the General
Delegation for the French Language became the General
Delegation for the French Language and the Languages
of France, the intention being ‘to demonstrate the State’s
recognition of the country’s linguistic diversity’. And
French baccalaureate students can now sit several exams
in regional languages.
More anecdotally (but significantly,
in terms of the appropriation of a
language by its speakers), debates
are raging in school playgrounds,
across bistro counters and on social
media over the greater accuracy, the
untranslatable genius, the flavour and
the prestige of expressions heard in
Toulouse, Marseille, Corsica, Alsace,
Brittany and Northern France.
France is literally cut in two – between lovers of pains au
chocolat, and those who devour chocolatines! (A somewhat
African Development Bank, the Economic Community
of West African States, the Common Market for Eastern
pointless and dishonest debate, you have to admit, since
anyone from Brussels can tell you we’re really talking
about... couques au chocolat.) It’s a sign of the times that
and Southern Africa, the Indian Ocean Commission
and the Association of Caribbean States, among others,
it has given way to English as the international language
President Macron himself likes to pepper his speeches of communication and power in Europe and across the
with regionalisms. world.
If the French language is to become the common
What does the future hold for heritage of as many people as possible, it has everything
French internationally? to gain by being more inclusive and accommodating. It
must dethrone style in favour of clear communication,
According to a 2014 report by the Observatory for the show greater flexibility towards foreign borrowings or
French Language, there are 274 million French‑speakers neologisms, and simplify its spelling and grammar. But
in the world, the fastest growth being seen in Africa. are we ready for this?
French has never been so widely spoken. According to the
This is unquestionably worth the effort. Upholding the
Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, it is the
French language as a living tool of communication will
official language – alone or with others – of 32 countries
preserve linguistic diversity, nourish cultural diversity
and regions. It is the fifth most spoken language in the
and put our collective wealth to better use within the EU.
world, the third most used language in business, the
second most taught language and the fourth most used
language on the internet. Author: Benjamin Heyden
Although French is also an official international language
of the EU, the UN, NATO, the World Trade Organisation,
the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development, the International Olympic Committee, the
Palais de l’Institut and Pont des Arts in Paris.
Credits: Morphart Adobe Stock
Languages
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21
Irish: listening backwards, looking
forwards
The story of the Irish language is filled with deep tragedy,
loss, remarkable perseverance and, finally, hope. It is a story,
variations of which have played out time and again with
other languages around the world throughout history, often
with more unhappy endings.
Old Train Ticket Irish Ireland Vintage. Credits: Spatzenballet Adobe Stock

The number of languages which have become extinct,
and continue to do so on a regular basis, is mind-blowing.
Each language death is a tragedy, as with these languages
disappears also an untold wealth of cultural heritage –
stories, social relationships, ways of life.
Irish has, however, managed to some extent to stem the
tide for the moment, and appears to be turning a corner.
This is a remarkable thing to see and truly a privilege to
be a part of, even if our work here in DGT is only one
small part of the Herculean effort to preserve, revive and
breathe new vigour and life into the language – an effort
which has been continuing since the late 19th century.
Against all odds
The immediate danger of the Irish language becoming
extinct – very real 100 years ago – has now passed thanks
to the dedication and support of a relatively small number
of truly heroic activists, and the stubborn commitment
of those communities in which Irish has been spoken
uninterruptedly for close to 2 000 years. In order to
ensure the continued development and progress of
Irish‑speaking communities, however, further efforts are
certainly needed.
Language shift always occurs as the result of social and
political processes, and in Ireland these were compounded
by the tragedy of natural disaster. The fact that Irish is still
very much alive and spoken today is even more remarkable
when we consider the extent of the language loss which
occurred in Ireland in the years during and following the
Great Irish Famine (in Irish An Gorta Mór – the great
hunger – or more simply An drochshaol – the bad times).
Although estimates vary, there were roughly 8 million
people living in Ireland in 1846, the year before the start
of the Famine. Of these, roughly 4 million were largely
monolingual Irish‑speakers. By the time the Famine
had ended in 1850, roughly 1 million people had died
from starvation and disease and a further 1 million had
emigrated – mostly to the USA and Canada. Another
2 million emigrated over the following half-century.
In 1891 (45 years later), out of a remaining population
of roughly 4 million, there were only 680 000 people left
in Ireland who could speak Irish. These figures show that
it was predominantly Irish‑speakers living in the south
and west of Ireland – the poorest areas and those worst
affected – who were the victims of this appalling tragedy,
and one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the 19th
century.
The rise of English
Although the Great Irish Famine was no doubt a terrible
catalyst for this brush with oblivion, the sustained decline
of the Irish language had begun well before that. The
roots of this large‑scale loss of cultural heritage lie in the
unavoidable fact of history that Irish has been forced to
contend with a neighbouring language, English, which,
through the political dominance of first England and
then the USA, has gone on to become the de facto lingua
franca of the world.
The influence of English today on other major world
languages such as French or Japanese is often noted.
Perhaps even more noticeable is the prominence of
English vocabulary in less widely spoken languages
throughout Europe and world.
When you have a language, however, whose speakers
live in a society where English is the primary language of
political and public life and of international commerce,
as has been the case in Ireland for well over 200 years, the
challenges of avoiding the influence of English become
monumental.
Irish in the globalised world
Nevertheless, Irish‑speakers have persevered. Today there
is a vibrant Irish‑language media sector, with a dedicated
state television station and national radio station in Irish,
various online lifestyle and news publications and a
thriving Twitter community.
And Irish is studied as a living language by thousands of
young people in Celtic studies departments at universities
in Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, Germany,
Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, France, Norway,
Poland, Sweden, Russia and China.
Irish‑language summer schools aimed at putting members
of the Irish diaspora in touch with the language of
their ancestors are flourishing. Language‑learning and
videoconferencing software have given access to the
language to people around the world who might never
otherwise have had the opportunity to learn it.
The growth of Irish‑medium primary and secondary
schools throughout both Ireland and Northern Ireland
has gone from strength to strength, which has led to a
young and vocal urban Irish‑speaking population.
The communities where Irish has hung on throughout
its troubled history, the so‑called Gaeltacht along the
west coast of Ireland, are however still facing major social
challenges. Emigration from these areas has not stopped
since the Famine. Infrastructure is not as developed as it
is in many other parts of the country, and employment
opportunities are lacking.
A new role for an old language
The Irish‑language publishing industry has nonetheless
continued to publish works of fiction and non‑fiction,
textbooks and poetry, thus carrying on the ancient
tradition of Irish‑language scholarship and literature into
the 21st century. Major works of modern Irish-language
literature have been translated into such diverse languages
as Dutch, Czech and Japanese.
The legal rights of Irish‑speakers in Ireland are protected
under the Irish constitution, although public opinion in
certain areas of Irish society is still less than supportive
of the language. The rights of Irish‑speakers in Northern
Ireland are the subject of a vibrant, ongoing, grassroots
political campaign.
It is often tempting, when thinking about the current state
of Irish, to ask the question – what if ? What if English had
never become the dominant language in Ireland? What if
Irish‑speakers had had the opportunity to promote and
preserve the use of their language in daily life, and thus
preserve the vast cultural heritage which has to a great
extent been lost? Where would we be today?
The answer of course is that we will never know. One thing
we do know is that now, with Irish having been granted
the status of an official language of the EU in 2007, Irish
is in a position which those forced to leave their language
behind on the boat to America 150 years ago could never
have imagined – that of being recognised as having equal
status to the major languages of Europe.
Author: Kilian McDonagh

Languages Languages
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22 23

Croatian: a delight for linguists?
Imagine a language without articles, but with seven cases,
three genders and two numbers. Throw in 25 consonants
and five vowels, which can be long or short. Its verbs can
have two aspects: the perfective and the imperfective.
Combine it with a bunch of diacritics, and you’ve got…
Croatian!
The Holy Triunity
The features mentioned above are not the only intricacies
of the EU’s 24th official language, whose long and
tumultuous history goes back many centuries.
While Croatian is now written exclusively in Latin script,
the Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts have also been used
throughout history. Modern Croatian has three major
dialects: Čakavian, Kajkavian and Štokavian, named after
the different ways of saying ‘what’ in these dialects – ča,
kaj and što respectively. The triune nature of Croatian is
unique among the Slavic languages.
In addition, Štokavian is the official dialect, yet it also
has three variants: Ekavian, Ikavian and Ijekavian, with
different geographical distributions. The latter forms the
basis for Croatian.
According to Ethnologue, the online database of world
languages, there are some 5.5 million Croatian‑speakers
in the world. The majority live in their native country,
with a large diaspora in countries such as Germany, the
USA, Canada and Australia. Smaller language groups
can be found in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia,
Montenegro and Austria, to name a few.
Social status: it’s complicated
Admittedly – and we Croats do take a certain pride in
this – our language is hard to learn for most.
Let’s not dwell on the fact that we have our own words
to describe something as universal as months of the year.
The devil is in the detail, as every Croatian translator will
tell you – or rather in the complex phonological features
of the language.
Languages
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24
Croatian has pitch accent, meaning that each syllable has
either a rising or falling pitch. The type of accent depends
very much on the region where it’s spoken. Croatia has
more dialects than geographical regions, with each
having distinctive acoustic and linguistic characteristics.
For example, there are at least 46 synonyms for the word
‘cob’ (corn cob) in Croatia.
However, for the average language student it’s virtually
impossible to know which words are dialect and which
are standard Croatian. Interestingly, speaking Croatian
with a standard accent does not necessarily imply higher
social status or linguistic competence in Croatian.
In short, it’s as much a challenge for the average student as
it is a delight for linguists.
Back to their roots
With Croatia joining the EU in July 2013, the Croatian
language has achieved full legal and legitimate status
within the family of 24. It’s a historic moment which fills
us with pride. A world of new possibilities is opening
up to various language professionals working for the
EU institutions. Expectations are high, and demand is
ever‑growing.
The interest in learning Croatian from abroad has never
been greater. The State Office for Croats Abroad awards
scholarships each academic year, with hundreds of young
people learning the language of their ancestors at three
major Croatian universities.
Some of them will stay for good, enriching the country
with their other languages and cultures. While it’s still
early days, these newcomers could have an even greater
impact on the language politics in their new homeland.
Danica zagrebečka (1850), Kajkavian
calendar. Credits: Public Domain
Wikipedia
Writers and literature Olja Savičević Ivančević (b. 1974) is a novelist, poet and
playwright. The translations of her works into several
Moving into the world of literature, there are several languages have been received with acclaim (Farewell,
authors worth noting, and an increasing number of works Cowboy; Singer in the Night; Mamasafari).
have been translated. Danijel Dragojević (b. 1934), the greatest living Croatian
Miro Gavran (b. 1962) is probably the most translated poet, leads a secluded life and never lets his poems be
Croatian contemporary writer: his works are available printed in more than one edition.
in some 40 languages. He’s the only living playwright in Another much‑lauded poet, writer and literary critic is
Europe to have a theatre festival dedicated to his work – Delimir Rešicki (b. 1960), with his texts translated into
Gavranfest, held initially in Slovakia and more recently in
the Czech Republic.
12 languages.
To read these authors in the original Croatian, of course,
In 2017, Gavran received a prestigious international you’ll first have to grapple with all those cases, genders,
award from the Dr Alois Mock Europe Foundation for aspects and diacritics. But it’s worth it!
the promotion of European values and unity.
Kristian Novak (b. 1979) is Croatia’s newest literary Author: Sanja Željeznjak
superstar. His novels, partly written in the dialect of his  
native Međimurje region in North Croatia, are hugely
successful and have since been adapted for the stage and
big screen.
Languages
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25
Italian: striking a balance between
promotion and preservation
‘United in diversity’: the EU motto isn’t a trivial phrase. The
underlying concept is clarified by Article 167 of the Treaty
on the Functioning of the European Union, which states
that the EU contributes ‘to the flowering of the cultures
of the Member States, while respecting their national
and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the
common cultural heritage to the fore’.
A nation’s primary cultural vehicle is, undoubtedly, its
language. And there’s nothing like studying the evolution
of a language system to help us understand the EU motto
in all its depth.
By looking at how Italian has evolved and where it is
now, we can identify a number of factors that are key to
striking a balance between union and diversity, between
promotion and preservation.
Sharing the language far and wide
Italian has an outstanding record when it comes to
promotion. To everyone’s surprise, Italy’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs recently announced that it is the fourth
most‑studied language worldwide.
There are many reasons for this success. A quick look at
how the language has evolved goes some way to explaining
its global reach.
Firstly, Italian has made its mark as a literary language.
Since its origins as a mutation of Latin around the 11th
century, it has lent itself to highly poetic expressions that
retain a degree of simplicity: Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per
sora luna e le stelle, in celu l’ài formate clarite et pretiose et
belle (‘Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and
the stars, in heaven you formed them clear and precious
and beautiful’).
In the space of just a century, Italian reached full maturity
with Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch: […] et del mio
vaneggiar vergogna è ‘l frutto, e ‘l pentersi, e ‘l conoscer
chiaramente che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno
(‘[…] My vanity has grown the fruits of shame, and my
repentance, as I clearly know, that what we love of life is
but a dream.’) Regardless of education or nationality, it is
difficult not to be drawn in by the musicality and grace of
these poems.
Languages
our living history
26
globalisation, arguing that the only way we can be ready
to take on the global market is by speaking English
founded by Annamaria Testa advocates the use of Italian
words, especially in public communication.
everywhere, all the time. Enthused by this movement, the
Translators have a very important role to play in such
Vice‑Chancellor of one Italian university announced that
efforts to strike a balance between unity and diversity.
its classes would no longer be in Italian. Fortunately, the
Their work makes it possible to communicate, to share
Constitutional Court ruled, in a case brought before it,
that ‘the objective of globalisation (...) must be achieved,
ideas and to take care of the language, while refusing to
give in to the easy temptation of ‘not saying it in Italian’.
(...) without violating the constitutional principles of the
primacy of the Italian language (...)’.
Author: Carla Zanoni Lo Piccolo
The fate of Italian lies in the hands of Italians. It is up
to Italians to protect it – without rejecting linguistic
borrowings or indeed foreigners themselves – and to  
enhance it, by making the most of the immense richness
our language has to offer. The ‘Say it in Italian’ movement
This musicality – the hallmark of Italian – takes us to
another level. It is reminiscent of the Baroque period and
the birth of melodrama, a theatrical genre in which action Dante Alighieri. Florence.
is expressed through music and singing. Credits: Ana on Adobe Stock
Over the centuries, the musical works of Monteverdi, and
later of Puccini, Rossini and Verdi, have travelled across
Europe, leaving behind Italian words in their wake. Who
– in Italy or elsewhere – doesn’t know the phrase, Va’
pensiero sull’ali dorate?
European languages have borrowed numerous Italian
words in fields such as gastronomy, music, fashion, style,
metric units and architecture. This is a classic example of
sharing culture through language.
A new renaissance?
Efforts to promote the language must be balanced by a
concern for preservation, so as to protect and enhance
linguistic and cultural diversity.
Preservation should not mean rejection. Italy’s status
as a country of emigration enables our language to
travel beyond our borders. Yet Italy is also a country
of immigration. This should be seen as a tremendous
opportunity. If we manage to adopt a welcoming and
open attitude to immigration, familiarity with our
language (and thus with our culture) could experience a
new renaissance. Second‑generation immigrants to Italy
love the country and its language, just as people elsewhere
do – if not more so, since immigrants to Italy have at
their fingertips everything foreigners dream of, from the
country’s landscapes to its culture and heritage.
Furthermore, in striving to preserve diversity, we must be
careful not to fall into unthinking habits.
For a long time, there has been a significant school of
thought in Italy that regards Italian as an obstacle to
Languages
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27

From dainas to digital:
the journey of Latvian
The Latvian state celebrated its centenary in 2018. Alongside
neighbouring states such as Finland, Estonia and Lithuania, Latvia
emerged from the ruins of empires in Europe after the First World War.
Unsurprisingly, its official language was and is Latvian – but the written
language precedes the state by several hundred years and the spoken one
by even more.
Latvian is an Indo‑European language belonging to the Baltic group, as is Lithuanian. The two are similar but not
mutually understandable, despite sharing some vocabulary. They bear absolutely no similarity to Estonian, which –
like Finnish – is one of the dozen or so languages in the Finno‑Ugric group.
From dainas to song and dance festivals
It is puzzling that no sources of written Latvian existed before
the 16th century. This is when the first religious texts were
written, almost certainly by German priests. But
perhaps it wasn’t necessary, as Latvians had a
powerful alternative: Latvian folk songs or dainas.
The stringent rhythm of dainas helped ancient
Latvians to structure their activities throughout the
(working) day, the season, the year and their entire
lives. Many variations of individual songs existed and
were written down in the 19th century. Songwriters
would transform a given folk song by adding their own
versions, while preserving its essence and linguistic
structure.
Nowadays dainas are still taught at school, having left a
deep imprint on literature and the Latvian language in
general. Poets would take a daina and produce new versions,
with the juxtaposition of the classic and the modern producing
a strikingly fresh result.
Latvian folk songs have often been set to other types of music
and form the repertoire of choirs who participate in song and
dance festivals held in Riga every five years. Those parts of the
language that are cast into a melody are sure to survive
through changing times.
Costume detail. Song and Dance
festival in Riga.
Credits: Aleks Kend Adobe Stock
Languages
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28
Rainis, Čaks, Bērziņš: three great again that ‘we say one thing, mean another, and actually
do something entirely different’.
language masters
If poetry is the quintessence of language – a linguistic
The centenary has stirred up some interest in Latvian
identity, and encouraged the state to provide funding to
dance – Latvians can be considered expert dancers. Maybe
the reason is that case endings can be handy for rhyming:
research and celebrate it.
Journalist, DJ and translator Ilmārs Šlāpins ironically
imagine nouns having nine or 10 additional forms to play
summed up the wisdom of Latvian life in a famous tweet:
with, instead of just singular and plural!
Kā ir, tā ir. Tā ir, kā ir. Ir – ir, nav – nav.
Here is a very short list of Latvian poets for this culture- • The first phrase translates roughly as ‘Things are the
savvy conversation. way they are’. Real meaning: ‘There’s nothing you can
do about it.’
Rainis, who died in 1929, is still regarded as an unsurpassed
guru. He wrote poems and plays (many still staged • Second phrase: ‘Things are not so good.’ Real
today) and translated world literature – from Goethe to meaning: ‘I would rather not talk more about it.’
Alexandre Dumas – into Latvian. He shortened mīlestība
• Third phrase: ‘Either, or.’ Real meaning: ‘I am tired
(love) to a four‑letter word (not of the slang variety!) and
of the deceptive world not providing me with clear
invented many other new words.
answers, but I have to make a choice and move on.’
Aleksandrs Čaks has been called the first Latvian urbanist.
‘Miglā asaro logs’ (Window crying in the mist) is his most Notice the wealth of meaning put into the seemingly
famous poem, and was turned into a classic love song. He simple variations of the ‘existential’ verb būt/ir (to be /
wrote striking love poetry and dedicated an epic poem it is). Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, whatever – it’s all there.
to the Latvian Riflemen of World War I. Unfortunately,
the only way he was allowed to work during the Soviet Latvian digital presence
occupation was if he wrote odes to Stalin. He died from
heart failure in 1950. Latvian has gained a lot since becoming an official EU
language in 2004. The huge volume of translations
Uldis Bērziņš is the modern classic poet, ‘humbly serving
accumulated during recent years and made publicly
the Goddess of the Latvian language’ in his own words. As
available online has served as a basis for modern machine
well as writing complex poetry that abounds in cultural
translation tools.
and geographic references, he authored many outstanding
translations, including (parts of ) the modern Bible, the Tilde, a Latvian language technology company producing
Quran and the Icelandic Edda. spellcheckers, electronic dictionaries, terminology
portals and machine translation, has used EU funding to
Are you flexible enough for produce language tools for ‘smaller’ European languages
– some of which might otherwise face digital extinction.
Latvian? Tilde reports that its latest machine translation
products for some language pairs have surpassed those
If you have ever visited Latvia or had other contact
of huge international players in industry benchmarking
with the culture, you may wonder why your name was
competitions.
transformed into Latvian text. This is because Latvian
is an inflected language and uses case endings. Words While there is no room for complacency, this may be a
from other languages need to be modified so they can be sign that – with local expert help – the Latvian language is
included in the Latvian grammar system. ready to face the digital challenges of the coming century.
Life wisdom according to Latvians Author: Uldis Priede
Sometimes it is the understatements or short phrases
that best express a nation’s culture and world view. The
Soviet period, with its KGB informers, bred a special type
of Latvian Aesopian language in literature, in poetry and
even in daily speech so as to avoid or fool the censors.
This tradition has not completely died out. Participants
in Latvian political discourse have complained time and
Languages
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29
Celebrating the freedom to read
and write in Lithuanian
If you ask a Lithuanian what springs to mind when
they think of 16 February, chances are they will say
independence, freedom or Basanavičius.
Freedom and independence are universal values, but Dr
Jonas Basanavičius is uniquely important to Lithuania.
Many Lithuanians regard him as the embodiment of
Lithuanian values and the national spirit.
This is because Basanavičius is the man who gave us the
freedom to read and write in Lithuanian.
Patriarch of a nation reborn
Basanavičius was a true 19th‑century cosmopolitan.
Born in a small village in the combined kingdom of
Poland‑Lithuania, he graduated from Moscow Medical
Academy and practised as a medical doctor in Bulgaria.
He then lived in Prague and Vienna, married a Czech
German, and travelled in the Balkan countries. He even
journeyed as far as the United States.
A polyglot and dedicated promoter
of the Lithuanian language, nation
and independence, he had a lifelong
interest in Indo‑European and
Baltic history. He was also a scholar
of Lithuanian culture, ethnology,
folklore, language and mythology.
Basanavičius founded the Lithuanian
Scientific Society, which later evolved
into the Lithuanian Academy of
Sciences. When Russification was at
its height, Basanavičius clandestinely
and illegally published Aušra (Dawn),
the first Lithuanian‑language
newspaper to use the Roman alphabet.
Although short‑lived, Aušra helped
galvanise the national movement
and attract new supporters,
igniting national aspirations for an
independent Lithuania.
Monument de Jonas Basanavičius
Credits: Michele Ursi Adobe Stock
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30
Language in nation-making
On 16 February 1918 Basanavičius, together with other
members of the Council of Lithuania, proclaimed the
declaration re‑establishing Lithuania’s independence,
which he was the first to sign. This declaration, which
gave his country and people a new destiny, has had an
incredible history in itself: the original copy, which had
been considered missing since 1940, was only found – in
the Political Archive of the German Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in Berlin – on 29 March 2017.
Lost or found, the Act gave all of us the opportunity
to celebrate the centenary of a restored Lithuania on
16  February  2018. And Basanavičius, with his courage,
vision, ceaseless labour and belief in freedom when it
seemed so implausible, gave us the greatest gift ever – the
freedom to read and write in Lithuanian!
Thanks to Basanavičius and others like him, the interwar
period of independence gave birth to the development of
a Lithuanian press and Lithuanian literature, music, arts
and theatre – not to mention a comprehensive system of
education with Lithuanian as the language of instruction.
Modern standard Lithuanian was now fully developed
and used, and Lithuania strived to let the world know of
its existence.
However, much of what had been so painstakingly built
up in the new independent state collapsed when the Soviet
Union occupied Lithuania. Hundreds of thousands of
the country’s residents were killed or deported, and tens
of thousands of Lithuanians – many of them leading
cultural, academic and political figures – fled to exile in
the West to escape persecution.
During the Soviet era, Lithuanian was used in official
discourse along with Russian, which as the official
language of the USSR often took precedence, especially in
the administrative field. Russian was the de facto language
of innovation, and all new inventions, news and education
came to Lithuanians through Russian. But Lithuanians
did not abandon their language, and it came to play a
crucial role in their national identity. Schools taught
Lithuanian as a subject lovingly called ‘Mother tongue’,
while universities resisted intense pressure to russify the
curriculum. Artists did all they could to further the cause
of Lithuanian identity by creating works that helped to
develop a Lithuanian national consciousness.
Lithuania managed to stand firm and emerged in 1990
as a newly independent state with its own identity and
language basically intact. To a great extent this was thanks
to the strong political and cultural foundations laid
by Basanavičius and his contemporaries before World
War II. Today, stronger than ever, Lithuanian is spoken
by some 3 million people and is an official language of
the EU. It is even being studied by the most courageous
linguists and other enthusiasts.
Lithuanian – the hardest of the
hard?
So they say… Lithuanian is considered to be the oldest
surviving Indo-European language and retains many
archaic features, while other languages have undergone
many more changes and simplifications through the
centuries. To meet a Lithuanian is to encounter the
‘European Adam’, as the Swiss scholar Joseph Ehret put it.
There are seven noun cases to decline and five
declensions – that alone is daunting enough. Nouns,
pronouns, adjectives, participles and even numerals are
marked for gender, number and case. There are three
numbers: singular, dual and plural. The verbs have three
conjugations, four tenses and four moods, an active and
a passive form and several forms of the gerund, not to
mention a very peculiar participial system. Adjectives
can be definite or indefinite, have basic, comparative and
superlative forms and three declensions, and must agree
in case, gender and number with the nouns they modify.
There are personal, possessive, demonstrative, reflexive,
reciprocal, interrogative-relative, indefinite and negative
pronouns. No wonder even machine translation engines
lag behind when it comes to learning Lithuanian!
As one of the most conservative modern Indo‑European
languages, Lithuanian has preserved some words that are
identical or very similar to their counterparts in Sanskrit,
while the basic vocabulary is inherently Lithuanian. This
means most words bear no notable resemblance to words
in other languages, so knowing other languages isn’t much
help in studying Lithuanian.
Languages
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31
As for writing and pronunciation, Lithuanian uses
a modified Roman alphabet consisting of 32 letters,
including 12 vowels (a, ą, e, ę, i, į, y, o, u, ų, ū and the
unique ė). The vowel system is characterised by vowel
length, which makes a difference to word meaning. In
addition, Lithuanian has eight diphthongs (ai, ei, ui, oi,
au, eu, ie, uo).
There are also hard/soft consonant pairs (palatisation),
meaning that for most consonants used in English, for
example, there are two distinct consonants in Lithuanian.
You often need to hear and pronounce these properly
to distinguish between different words. Consonant
clusters – three, four or even five in a row – are also a
challenge. Apart from that, Lithuanian is very phonetic,
with words pronounced how they are spelled, although
the stress can fall on any syllable in a word and this isn’t
normally marked orthographically. Lithuanian has the
most mobile, or changeable, accentuation system of
all living Indo‑European languages. In other words, in
almost all word classes, the main stress can fall on any
syllable and it changes its position according to a complex
system. The language’s accentuation is so intricate that
it has developed into a separate branch of linguistics–
Lithuanian accentology.
But there’s a bright side: there are no articles and only two
genders, masculine and feminine – a comfort to anyone
who has tried to learn German. There’s also no fixed word
order, so you can be as creative as you want (as long as you
follow the theme‑rheme structure). Grammar rules are
quite sensible, and conjugations fairly regular.
So don’t despair! Many foreigners who have learned
Lithuanian (be it for business, for love, for research or
simply out of curiosity) have already proven that you
don’t need any superpowers. And, as every single one of
them will confirm, saying just a few words in Lithuanian
will win you the brightest smiles, friendship and respect,
as if you were a truly superpowered language learner.
Author: Inga Lukoševičiūtė
 
Hungarian: Martian language or
European melting pot?
Hungarian is a very peculiar language – and it’s not
just Hungarians who think so! Language experts of all
nationalities agree that it is unique.
For one thing, none of our close neighbours speak related
languages. In the 19th century this absence sparked
the interest of amateur language students, who sought
similarities with exotic languages such as Sumerian,
Japanese, Etruscan and various Celtic languages. The
hoped for similarities proved unfounded, but the
languages that really are closest to Hungarian are almost
as exotic: Khanty and Mansi, spoken in far‑flung regions
of Siberia. Luckily, Hungarian also has relatives closer by
in Finland and Estonia.
When Hungarian tribes arrived in Europe around 900,
they brought with them arrows and lances. The people
they raided expressed their fears in Latin prayers: ab
Ungerorum nos defendas iaculis (‘from the Hungarians’
lances, our Lord, please protect us’). But the Hungarian
tribes soon abandoned violence, settled down, converted
to Christianity and adopted some of their neighbours’
customs – and words.
The language may sound extra‑terrestrial to the
uninitiated ear, and even the written form can be
difficult to understand. People who can read some street
signs elsewhere in Europe would be hard‑pressed to
decipher Hungarian signs. Even Finns and Estonians are
stumped. Rest assured, Hungarians have an equally hard
time deciphering signposts written in Indo-European
languages – or even in Finnish or Estonian.
Loan words with a Hungarian twist
Even before its arrival in the Carpathian basin, Hungarian
had been influenced by other languages. And long
after finding a permanent home, it remains open to
outside influences. But the language has a few defence
mechanisms. One is the bane of every Hungarian-learner’s
life: vowel harmony. This is the reason ‘in the house’ takes
the suffix -ban (a házban) but ‘in the garden’ takes -ben (a
kertben).
It is partly because of this phenomenon that Hungarian
prefers to assimilate loan words and to use loan translations
Languages
our living history
32
rather than a totally unaltered foreign word. While loan
words often sound like the original foreign‑language word,
loan translations are created by taking a foreign word
and translating it literally into Hungarian. This deprives
visitors to Hungary of the possibility of recognising words
that are otherwise very similar all over Europe.
Ready for a crash course?
In spite of these difficulties, we would argue that
Hungarian is no harder than any other language.
Sure, a noun can have more than 700 forms with all the
case endings, so a translation request will drive us crazy if
you ask us to include all possible forms. Earlier machine
translation tools were also driven crazy by all the cases.
Take this example:
In one county, the audit team observed two inspections at
a medium-sized producer of strawberries with a pack house
and a large producer of cabbage.
And the Hungarian translation:
Az egyik megyében az ellenőrzést végző csoport két
ellenőrzést tartott egy kis méretű szamóca közepes méretű
gyártójánál, valamint egy nagy káposztánál.
An approximate translation back into English gives this
amusing result:
In one county, the audit team observed two inspections at
a medium size creator of small‑sized strawberries and at a
large cabbage.
But noun complexity is counterbalanced by verb
simplicity, with only two tenses: the past and present.
And our substantives don’t have a gender to learn. Nor
do we differentiate between he and she – Hungarian only
uses the pronoun ő, and in many cases no pronoun at all.
So how do we know the person’s gender? We use names
more often, or ‘the boy/man’ or ‘the girl/woman’. The use
of articles depends only on whether the noun starts with
a vowel or a consonant, so im Büro is az irodában and am
Meer is a tengernél. Easy, isn’t it?
Slavic sausages or Turkish slippers
– the loan words Hungarians love
Those who recognise Greek or Latin will easily
understand the words shouted at street protests, such
as demokrácia (democracy) and politika (politics). Latin
was widespread as the language of public affairs, religion,
law and education until the mid‑1800s, leaving us mártír
(martyr), prédikál (preach), templom (temple, church)
and iskola (school).
Turkish‑speakers can ask for a papucs (pair of slippers), a
gyertya (candle) or szőlő (grapes) in their hotels. But we
accept no liability for anyone who requests a balta (axe).
German‑speakers might have to use their imagination
to order a kifli (Kipferl) or a torta (Torte) at a pékség
(Bäckerei). But they’ll have no trouble finding their
balcony seats at the opera when they see the word erkély
(from Erker) on their tickets.
In addition to these loan words, German is also the source
of many loan translations because it was the common
language when scholars and promoters of Hungarian tried
to modernise the language in the 18th and 19th centuries. A
kávéház (coffeehouse, a mirror translation of Kaffeehaus)
will therefore be easy to spot for German‑speaking
tourists.
Speakers of Slavic languages have an advantage when it
comes to Hungary’s culinary delights, including kolbász
Languages
our living history
33
Budapest. The Little Princess
Credits: Luciano Mortula-LGM Adobe Stock
(kolbasa: sausage) and pisztráng (pstrąg: trout). And they
can go to a patak (potok: brook) to cool down on a hot
summer day.
Nowadays, it’s English which has the greatest influence
on Hungarian. Just speak out loud words like fájl (file),
szoftver (software) or szkenner (scanner), and you will
know half of our IT vocabulary. Of course, writing these
correctly is a different kettle of fish.
Hungarian has loaned a few words
of its own
In addition, there are a handful of Hungarian words which
are famous in other parts of the world but can also be
useful when travelling or dining in Hungary. For example,
kocsi (car) originally referred to a carriage, and came from
the name of the post town Kocs in western Hungary. In
German it became Kutsche (coach). Other such words are
puszta (Pußta in German, the steppe‑like region visited
by thousands of tourists in eastern Hungary) and gulyás
(goulash).
So give Hungarian a try! Perhaps one day when those
Martians descend to Earth, you can discuss the finer points
of Hungarian wines with them ‘in their own language’.
Authors: Katalin Berencsi and
Annamária Fótos
Maltese: From survival to revival
Compared with languages such as Greek or French, what great
contributions has my little mother tongue given to the world?
True, there are some Maltese words
in the Oxford English Dictionary
(which you can count on one hand).
And we have contributed the names
of traditional items:
• the colourful dgħajsa, a fishing
boat that bobs about in our
serene waters – it was this word
that Syamantak Payra correctly
spelled to become the 2012
champion of the South Asian
Spelling Bee
• lampuka, the staple for a quick
fish dinner
• spitchered, the 1920s naval slang
meaning ‘rendered inoperative,
ruined’ – from the Maltese verb
spiċċa, to finish, which illustrates
a peculiar semantic journey
from the Sicilian spicciari or
Italian spicciare, essentially
meaning ‘to hurry (something)
up (in order to conclude it)’.
So that’s what Maltese gives to
Europe: the story of a language that
has made it through the ages. More
than a thousand years of influences –
from a constant flow of conquerors,
travellers and seafarers who settled
on our miniscule rock – have created
this unique hybrid of Semitic and
Romance which nowadays continues
to absorb the relentless global influx
of English.
Maltese has survived and flourished
through those ages, despite being
essentially an unwritten language for
centuries – but with a long‑standing
oral tradition that we are still studying
and discovering.
Languages
our living history
34
Impact of EU
accession
Malta’s accession to the EU in 2004
also meant the culmination of years
of struggle for Maltese to earn its
rightful place as the country’s national
language. The EU’s recognition of
Maltese has resulted in a surge of
respect for a vernacular that has borne
the brunt of attacks and denigration,
mostly by pockets of its own speakers.
Like the wiliest of animals, or some
weird ultra-resilient creature such
as the tardigrade, Maltese survived
despite the lack of recognition. The
permanent diglossia characterising
Maltese linguistic history meant that
the vernacular played second fiddle
to the academic and official Sicilian,
Italian or English.
But this lack of official recognition
also meant a parallel tradition was
created, which was then taken up
as one of the banners on the bumpy
road to nationhood and eventual
self‑determination.
Language politics
Ignorance would have been bliss,
but the use of Maltese as a political
pawn resulted in it being derided as a
language ‘suitable for the kitchen’ by
an Italianate politician in the 1930s.
It then achieved a Pyrrhic victory
in gaining national recognition –
together with English – prior to
the Second World War. This was
done to stave off the threat of Italian
influence.
Maltese boat – Luzzu et Dgħajsa - Marsaxlokk, Malta. Credits: EWY Media Adobe Stock
Maltese may still have to suffer some The future looks bright, and it could
knocks: not, as facile opinion would be even brighter. The chequered
have it, from the English‑speaking travails of the Maltese language
minority frequently associated are a true example of European
with certain elites, but from other multilingualism, illustrating the
quarters which have succumbed to dignity of different nations’ tongues
over‑inflated notions of the global – the story of how cultures and their
importance of English, the lack of languages can meld harmoniously.
public space for Maltese, and a general
But this calls for educated vigilance
sense of small‑island inferiority.
in order to safeguard the medium
But it is the EU that has given through which history, tradition,
Maltese this new‑found status: on values and heritage are transmitted.
a par with 23 other languages, at a
legal, legitimate and democratic level. Author: Mark Vella
The Maltese have won the automatic  
right to communicate and receive
correspondence in their mother
tongue, and to have it available
regardless of whether or not they are
perfectly fluent in their other official
language, English.
An enviable position
This is a destiny that other tongues
spoken by more than half a million
people still clamour for – with, frankly,
limited prospects. Our authors are
translated more than ever, thanks to
the EU Prize for Literature and, for
better or for worse (but hopefully
better), the overwhelming amount of
online content in Maltese provided
by our merry army of translators in
Luxembourg and Brussels.
It is truly exhilarating to be part of
this wonderful moment in the history
of the Maltese language – and to
participate as one of the many authors
of this revival through my linguistic
activity within the European project.
Languages
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35
In good company: wherever you go
just speak Dutch
If you thought Dutch was only spoken by a handful of
people who would all fit into a windmill or a herring buss,
you may be surprised to find out that it is spoken in many
countries all over the world – and by a great many and many
great people.
In the EU, more than 22 million people speak Dutch as their first language. Outside Europe, it
is the mother tongue of another million people. Dutch is an official language in the Netherlands,
Belgium (Flanders and Brussels), Suriname, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. To coordinate
language policy in these otherwise diverse regions, an organisation called the Taalunie (Language
Union) was created.
Comitatus Hollandiæ denuo forma Leonis; 1648. Universiteits Bibliotheek van Amsterdam
Credits: Visscher, Nicolao Iohannis. Public domain.
Languages
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36
Standardisation of Dutch Audrey Hepburn
During the Renaissance, there was a wish to develop
a standardised Dutch language. The French book
Long before Audrey Hepburn (1929‑1993) made it
to Hollywood and starred in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, she
printer Christophe Plantin started to work in Antwerp, played her first film role as a KLM stewardess in a Dutch
making it feasible to publish books in Dutch. But this
rich port town was under Spanish rule, together with
production called Nederlands in zeven lessen (Dutch in
Seven Lessons). Audrey Hepburn was born in Brussels in
the whole southern part of the Dutch-language region 1929, to a Dutch mother and a British father. When she
(nowadays Flanders). Therefore, the standardisation of was six, the family moved to London, but when Britain
Dutch continued in just the northern part of the region declared war on Germany, Audrey’s mother thought it
(nowadays the Netherlands). wiser to move to the Netherlands, not realising the war
One of the many refugees who went north was Simon
would soon enough spread to this neutral country too.
Audrey Hepburn’s mother tongue was Dutch, a language
Stevin (1548‑1620), a great mathematician, scientist and
she took pride in speaking whenever she gave interviews
engineer. He realised the importance of experiments to
to Dutch or Flemish media.
check theory, and he developed techniques to improve
wind and water mills. In a time when most scientists
used Latin, he thought Dutch was the most convenient Jacques Brel
language to use in science, because he considered that it
Jacques Brel (1929‑1978) is one of the most famous
lent itself more easily to the development of new, self-
Belgian singers in the world. Musicians such as
explanatory scientific terms. Thanks to him, the Dutch
Frank Sinatra (‘If You Go Away’) and David Bowie
language has its own words for terms that in most
(‘Amsterdam’) sung the English versions of some of his
languages are borrowed from Greek, such as wiskunde
songs. Raised in a bourgeois Belgian family in the first half
(mathematics) and evenwijdig (parallel), to name but two.
of the 20th century, Brel had French as his first language,
but called himself a ‘Francophone Fleming’. He definitely
The Golden Age had a love-hate relationship with the Flemish, and the
feeling was mutual. Several of his meanest songs are
The northern part of the Dutch language region became
directed at Flemish people, yet some of his most beautiful
the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and entered
songs are in Dutch. One of these is ‘Marieke’, about a girl
a golden age. Dutch ships sailed the oceans. They traded
he once loved in the Flemish countryside and to whom he
with and colonised parts of Asia, the Caribbean and
whispered words of love in Dutch.
Africa. This is how the Dutch language was introduced
to Suriname, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. Dutch
sailors settled in South Africa and, from the language Johan Cruijff
they continued speaking among themselves, there sprang
Who doesn’t know of Johan Cruijff (1947‑2016), one of
a new language: Afrikaans.
the greatest football players ever? He is remembered for
his excellent technique and as a great coach, but also for
Peter the Great his very original speaking style, for which there is only one
description: Cruijffian. Elk nadeel heb z’n voordeel (‘Every
In 1697, Peter the Great came to the Netherlands,
downside ‘as its upside’) is one of the Cruijffianisms that
wanting to modernise shipbuilding in his newly built
have become famous.
capital, St Petersburg. When he returned to Russia, he
took many Dutch craftsmen with him. Dutch words The Dutch language has travelled the world, and the
entered the Russian language, such as shtorm (storm). world has travelled to the Dutch‑language region. Of
Some aristocratic Russians did not approve of a tsar course, as we make a living out of this language, we are
who lowered himself to training as a ship carpenter and completely biased on this, but hey, that’s love!
came back speaking such a non‑distinguished language
as Dutch. As a consequence, calling someone a ‘Dutch Author: Jo Govaerts
gentleman’ has been an insult in Russian for some 300  
years.
Languages
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37
Polish - A difficult language?
W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie – or some good
reasons to learn (or not to learn) Polish…
Polish has a reputation as a difficult language. It’s true that
at first sight its strings of consonants seem impossible to
pronounce. But its 35 phonetic consonants feature only a
handful of digraphs (cz, rz, sz, ch, dz, dż, dź), plus a few
written consonants with an acute accent (ć, ś, ź). These
are simply graphic signs indicating how the sounds were
once pronounced. While we see four written consonants
today, in fact there are only two distinct sounds.
Polish has eight vowels: six oral and two nasal (ą and ę,
which roughly correspond to [o] and [e] in English). The
written forms ó and u both correspond to the same sound.
History and alphabet
But let’s start at the beginning. Polish belongs to the group
of West Slavic languages, as do Czech and Slovak. In 966,
the ‘Baptism of Poland’ (the baptism of the first known
Polish sovereign, Mieszko I, of the Piast dynasty) marked
the birth of the Polish state. This went hand in hand with
a decision that was to have linguistic repercussions: Latin
became the official language of the new kingdom.
As the national language began to emerge, it was
consequently written in the Latin alphabet rather than
in Cyrillic. The earliest written sentence in Polish dates
back to 1270: Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai. Loosely
translated, this means ‘let me do the grinding, and you
take a rest’ – proof that Polish feminism dates back to the
13th century.
Grammar and vocabulary
Let’s give some thought to grammar. Polish is said to be
the most complex Slavic language. It has three genders,
but – unlike French or German – no articles. So at least
there’s no need to worry about declining them.
This is made up for elsewhere. It’s nouns that are declined,
with plenty of choice: seven cases, two grammatical
numbers, three genders, a distinction between animate
and inanimate nouns, alternations and countless
exceptions. It all makes conjugating verbs (which almost
always have two aspects, perfective and imperfective)
seem like a piece of cake!
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38
Polish has two distinctive features, one grammatical and
the other lexical.
Firstly, there is no need for personal pronouns. You just
say ‘go’, ‘sit’ and ‘speak’, rather than ‘I go’, ‘you sit’ and ‘we
speak’. To make things easier (or more complicated?),
Polish is somewhat casual about where to place the subject,
verb and complement within a sentence. Perhaps it’s an
instance of fantaisie polonaise – or was it the language that
produced this national trait?
An emotional language?
Secondly, a distinctive lexical or semantic feature of Polish
is its frequent use of diminutives. These can be formed
in a multitude of ways to convey smallness of stature,
affection or even a derogatory tone.
While suffixes are the most common form, there are also
numerous pet names. To take my own first name as an
example, I am known variously as Agnieszka, Aga, Agusia, Olga Tokarczuk book - 2018. Credits: MarekPhotoDesign.com Adobe Stock
Agunia, Agniesia, Agnisia, Aguś… the list goes on. Poles,
especially in Lesser Poland (the region around Kraków),
are well known – and often mocked – for employing
diminutives on a daily basis. The literary establishment hailed the award of the Nobel All of these authors can be read in (excellent) translation
Prize in Literature to Olga Tokarczuk, for ‘a narrative – their translators have done a great deal for their success
A rich literature imagination that with encyclopaedic passion represents abroad. But aren’t you tempted to try your hand at Polish
the crossing of boundaries as a form of life’. The novelist yourself ?
The structure of a language influences one’s perception herself has said that new forms are needed to convey
of the world to some extent. This is abundantly clear in a world in movement. Describing the world requires Author: Agnieszka
literature. ‘something of the metaphysical’. The world we live in
Teodorczyk‑Demeulenaere
Polish poetry is already well established, thanks to Nobel
can no longer be understood purely through categories
grounded in reality.
Prize winners Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska,
not to mention Tadeusz Różewicz and Zbigniew Herbert. It’s a concept particularly evident in her book Bieguni
(Flights), which won the Man Booker international prize
In recent years, prose has gone from strength to strength,
in 2018. This ‘constellation novel’ speaks of the necessity
as has reportage literature – a genre associated with names
of change, of movement. It is made up of moments,
such as Ryszard Kapuściński, Hanna Krall, Małgorzata
crumbs, fleeting configurations – just like human life.
Szejnert and Mariusz Szczygieł, who are part of the ‘Polish
school of reportage’. The poetic universe of contemporary The many interesting figures in this new generation of
authors is universal, yet rooted in the characteristics, soul women writers include Joanna Bator, Dorota Masłowska
and history of a nation. and Wioletta Grzegorzewska.
Contemporary Polish literature is extremely rich, with a
growing number of notable women writers.
Languages
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39
The legacy of Arabic in Portuguese
Every language is alive and in a state of constant evolution,
reflecting a heritage that goes back to time immemorial.
That heritage is the result of countless influences sparked
by the inevitable intermingling of people from different
origins. Portuguese is no exception, and yields valuable
information about the various contributions it has
incorporated over the course of its history.
Layer upon layer
In its phonetics, morphology, syntax and lexis, Portuguese
is derived primarily from an organic evolution of Vulgar
Latin, introduced on the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans
in the 3rd century BC.
Yet it began with a Celtic-Lusitanian layer, corresponding
to the languages spoken by the pre‑Roman peoples
on the western side of the peninsula. After the fall of
the Roman Empire and the Barbarian Invasions, Old
Portuguese developed as a Roman dialect known as
Galician‑Portuguese. The arrival of the Arabs on the
peninsula introduced a new dimension.
Arabic: a lingua franca for centuries
The Arabs arrived on the Iberian Peninsula more than 1
300 years ago, in 711, as part of a migratory expansion
from North Africa. As their civilisation was culturally
more sophisticated than that of the Roman‑Visigoth
peoples on the peninsula, it had a significant influence in
various ways, particularly on the language.
Although the use of Arabic was never enforced, it served
as a lingua franca for a long time. It was used as a vehicular
language for five centuries in the areas of science, culture,
administration and business.
Languages
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40
The nation of Portugal was established during the
Christian Reconquista, which began during the 12th
century. However, the prestigious status of Arab
culture would remain visible in language, place names,
architecture and science even after Arab rule came to an
end.
Preserving knowledge
Early on, after the conquest of regions belonging to
the Byzantine Empire, the Arabs began systematically
translating scientific and philosophical treatises by Greek
and Roman authors. Scholars in the Christian period
following the Reconquista were well aware of the Arabs’
important contribution – in many cases, the original
versions of the ancient works they translated had been
lost during the course of history.
Numerous neologisms
The Arabs did not simply compile and translate all this
heritage; they enriched it considerably through intense
scientific, philosophical and cultural activity. This prolific
intellectual creation expanded knowledge and led to the
emergence of new concepts, giving rise to a need to invent
new words.
The Arabic language is extremely flexible, and allows new
terms to be created using its basic stems. Thousands of
new Arabic derivatives were invented, bearing no relation
to the classical or Roman languages spoken at the time.
Linguistic counterfeiting of
Christian translations
The early Christian translators had to decide how to
translate these new Arabic words into Greek or Latin. They
opted to invent new ‘Romanised’ terms using the Semitic
stem, without giving any etymological explanation. It is
clear that the purpose of this linguistic counterfeiting was
to conceal the fact that the terms originated from Arabic,
the language of the conquered people!
Modern researchers have tried to do justice to Arabic as a
source language by studying the linguistic origin of some
vocabulary of modern Portuguese. In particular, they have
drawn on the manuscripts of an author who is above all
suspicion: the Franciscan monk Diego de Guadix (16th
century).
A confessor during the Spanish Inquisition, he hailed
from Granada – a city in which the Arabic language and
traditions were still well rooted – and had an in‑depth
knowledge of the language. In his ‘dictionary of Arabisms’,
he highlighted the influence of Arabic on the development
of Latin, which had assimilated numerous Semitic roots.
Withstanding the test of time
Numerous words still in daily use today attest to the
impact of Arabic on Portuguese. Terms of Arabic origin
are found in many of the country’s place names, as well as
other fields. For example, Algarve simply means ‘west’ in
Arabic!
Languages
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41
The contribution of Arabic mainly concerns the material
sphere: it has mostly produced substantives and, to a lesser
extent, adjectives. Adverbs are very rare, and verbs almost
non‑existent. Expressions relating to moral qualities and
other abstract concepts are also practically non-existent.
Arabic influenced Portuguese vocabulary, but not the
language structure, which remained Latin.
In modern Portuguese, many words of Arabic origin can
easily be identified by the presence of the invariable Arabic
article al. This includes words designating plants (algodão,
alecrim, alfafa, alfazema, alcachofra), work tools (alicate,
algema), occupations (alfaiate, almocreve, almoxarife) and
measurements (alqueire).
One curiosity of the Portuguese language is the
interjection oxalá (pronounced ochalà), which derives
from the etymon law xâ Allâh (‘God willing’), with the
same meaning.
Linguistic tolerance to external
influences
Modern Portuguese evolved in a different way from
the other Romance languages. It reflects the historical
circumstances, exchanges and social and political changes
which forged the Portuguese nation and shaped its
identity.
After it acquired the status of a national language,
Portuguese continued to evolve through a process of
osmosis with other cultures and languages. Maritime
discoveries brought the Portuguese into contact with
other exotic languages in all four corners of the world.
This led to linguistic tolerance, with the assimilation of
countless words still present in modern Portuguese.
Author: Anabela Pereira
Romanian: a bit of everything
There’s one thing about the history of the Romanian
language that researchers and linguists agree on: it came
into being and developed on the north and south banks of
the River Danube. The rest is just speculation. It seems we’ve
been invaded so many times, by so many tribes and peoples,
that it’s extremely difficult to say for sure what happened
when. However, there are a few key moments in history
that have had an effect on the evolution of the Romanian
language.
First came the Romans…
Our ancestors, the inhabitants of Dacia, spoke their own
language when they were invaded by the Romans, who
came, conquered and left, leaving behind soldiers to
maintain order in the new province. These soldiers spoke
Latin, but not the classical variety. Their common speech,
peppered with military terms, was the Vulgar Latin
from which some of the Romance languages developed,
Romanian included.
The territory of the newly conquered province was a bit
remote though, not really part of the Roman Empire,
which meant that the people there were a bit isolated
and the province was difficult to defend. So the Romans
eventually withdrew from Dacia, and its people were
left to endure wave after wave of invasion: Goths, Picts,
Cumans, Huns, you name it. If a barbaric tribe happened
to be in the neighbourhood, you can be sure they would
make a little detour to come and vandalise the abandoned
former Roman province.
… and then the Slavs
The Slavs migrated there in the 5th century, and
their language is one of the major influences on the
development of Romanian. This influence continued in
the Middle Ages with the introduction of Old Church
Slavonic as the language of the administration and church
rites, and went on until the 18th century, when Romanian
replaced Old Slavonic and started imposing itself as the
official language of the church and the ruling class.
The Slavic influence is one of the things that have set our
language apart from other Romance languages. These are
all based on Latin, but Romanian followed a different
path, first by assimilating Vulgar Latin and the military
Languages
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42
terms used by the Roman soldiers, then by allowing
not only Slavic, but a whole array of other languages
to influence it: German, Hungarian, Greek, Russian,
Turkish, Bulgarian, Ukrainian and Serbo‑Croat, not to
mention French, Italian and, more recently, English.
Even more complicated than
German?
‘It is easier for a cannibal to enter the Kingdom of Heaven
through the eye of a rich man’s needle than it is for any
other foreigner to read the terrible German script.’ I
imagine everyone is familiar with Mark Twain’s musings
on the difficulty of the German language. He had probably
never tried learning Romanian.
Although I can fully relate to the above, having myself
struggled – or maybe fought would be a better word –
with German for years (German won, in case you were
wondering), I can’t help but feel sorry for a foreigner trying
to learn my language. OK, I feel a bit of Schadenfreude
too.
Let’s take an example. Romanian decided to keep almost
all the Latin cases (nice, like German!), except for the
ablative (nobody really understands what that is anyway):
nominative, accusative, dative, genitive and vocative,
the latter being some sort of poor Latin relative that we
couldn’t shake off and we’re not really sure why it’s still
around or what we should do with it.
So, learning Romanian would be easy for a German, right?
Or for people who understand cases? Wait. We also have
genders, but ours are a bit different: we have masculine
(‘milk’ is a boy, not a girl. So is ‘sausage’. And ‘tooth’ –
I’m looking at you, French, for problems with this one),
feminine and neuter.
Wayward and degenerate?
So far, so good? According to linguist Guy Deutscher,
‘the majority of languages have wayward genders. Most
European languages belong in this degenerate group.’
What makes our neuter special (or degenerate) is that it
is not like the English ‘it’, for instance.
It’s not for objects or animals (an English grammatical
rule that creates chaos at home when I insist that our dog
is a ‘he’ and a ‘who’ and a ‘whom’). In Romanian, neuter is
a mixture of masculine and feminine; that is, in order for
a noun to be neuter, its singular form has to be masculine
and its plural form feminine. Un scaun, două scaune. Girl
power!
One last thing (I don’t want to scare away potential
learners of Romanian): the definite article in Romanian
is enclitic, which makes our language unique among the
Romance languages. So Danes should have no problem.
So many influences
Among other things, learning other languages has shown
me how rich and interesting my own language is. I’m sure
Languages
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43
Rakoczi stairs with traditionnal
romanian decoration.
Credits: Dragos Adobe Stock
Romanian colleagues who have studied German have
had several ‘wow’ moments in class when they realised
they understood words like Schraube (șurub), Schlager
(șlagăr), Bohrmaschine (bormașină), Kartoffel (cartof),
Kellner (chelner), Bier (bere) and Schweizer (șvaițer).
The German influence is only one of the fascinating things
you discover when you learn Romanian. You also find out
that papuc (slipper) comes from Turkish, whereas fustă
(skirt) is from Greek. The words we use to describe our
world, like love and friend and voice, are all Slavic, whereas
words describing professions, the work environment and
food are (again!) from German.
I used to think it was more important and certainly
more fun to study foreign languages than to explore my
own. While learning a new language still appeals, I have
also discovered how studying Romanian can unearth
fascinating facts about my own country, culture and
mentality that have helped me navigate this increasingly
rich and multicultural world.
Author: Mădălina Olariu

What about learning Slovak?
Earlier generations of Slovaks might well have found it
difficult to believe that anyone would want to learn their
language. After all, it’s the language of just over five million
people who until recently did not even have their own state.
But things are changing, and the chances are that more
people than ever before will be taking the opportunity to
learn its joys. Slovak for Foreign Learners is hardly going
to compete any time soon with its English counterpart,
but it’s increasingly being offered by the country’s
language schools and universities.
Economy and euphony
One reason is Slovakia’s economy, based largely on the car
industry, and the country’s growing need for labour. This
is quite a contrast with the past, when Slovakia provided
many immigrants to the United States – including, of
course, the family of Andy Warhol (or Warhola, if you
want to be picky), who has a museum devoted to him in
Medzilaborce in the east of the country.
But even those who start learning Slovak for economic
reasons will soon find the language has much more
to offer. Not only is it a good introduction to Slavic
languages generally and to the closely related language
of the neighbouring Czech Republic, it is also a very
euphonic language noted for its soft consonants and
diminutive suffixes.
A young language and literature
Of course, history has meant that standard Slovak is a
relatively young language – its codification is associated
with Anton Bernolák and then Ľudovít Štúr in the 18th
and 19th centuries – and that its literature cannot boast
the ‘back catalogue’ of some other cultures.
Some would say that the country’s traditionally rural
economy has left the language short on, for example,
Languages
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44
Theatre – a happening scene Pride in the vernacular
Advanced learners with a keen ear for the language could In fact, it is perhaps true to say that Slovak culture’s
also look forward to exploring Slovakia’s lively theatre greatest assets lie in vernacular forms – not just popular
scene. As well as the traditional kamenné divadlá (the theatre, but above all the rich heritage of folklore. This is
main theatres in provincial centres), there has long been
a strong tradition of smaller, more informal genres, with
manifested, for example, in the tales famously collected
in the 19th century by Pavol  Dobšinský and in dances,
comedy duo Lasica and Satinský and Stanislav Štepka’s songs and lullabies. And of course, in the vinše – the
Radošínske naivné divadlo being particularly revered. personalised verse wishes that Slovaks still make the effort
to craft to celebrate birthdays and other events.
The most prolific of contemporary dramatists is
Viliam Klimáček, whose GUnaGU theatre continues to Great pride is taken in preserving this heritage, and the
pack ‘em in at a cellar in Bratislava’s old town. However, country boasts many amateur and professional folklore
the urban slang that some Slovaks envy the Czechs. But
his work has also been produced at the national theatre ensembles, such as Lúčnica and Sľuk, and folklore festivals,
that does not mean Slovak literature has nothing to offer
and his play #dubček was staged at the capital’s Aréna the oldest and largest of which is Východná.
– perhaps particularly in poetry, with Miroslav  Válek
theatre (a venue, incidentally, whose reconstruction was
and Milan  Rúfus taking pride of place. And there’s So, whether you aspire to take on a poem by Rúfus, enjoy
initiated by another of Slovakia’s cultural icons, mime
compensation, too, in the rich diversity of Slovak dialects. a play at the theatre, or just memorise a few lines of a
artist Milan Sládek).
cherished folk song, Slovak has so much to offer!
Pavel  Vilikovský was for a long time one of the most
universally respected of contemporary novelists, but
younger rivals have emerged, including Balla and the Author: Adriana Ward
much‑missed Peter  Krištúfek, two of the relatively few
Slovak writers to have been translated into English.
(Incidentally, credit for this goes to Julia  Sherwood,
who has also translated one of the most striking and
successful works of Slovak fiction in recent years,
Daniela Kapitáňová’s Samko Tále’s Cemetery Book.)
A recent boom in crime and historical fiction –
headed by the likes of Dominik  Dán, Jozef  Karika and
Juraj Červenák – has added to the mix, and the fact that
Slovaks are reading more home‑grown fiction than in the
past is surely a healthy sign.
National Theatre of Slovakia (detail)
Credits: ManuelHurtado Adobe Stock
Languages
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45

Slovenian: mightier than the sword
Language is the cornerstone of identity for the Slovenian
people. Their culture, and especially their literature, has
been pivotal in forging and preserving that identity. And in
the fight for independence, the pen proved mightier than
the sword.
Slovenian (slovenski jezik,
slovenščina) is a South Slavic – and
thus Indo‑European – language. It
is the mother tongue of around 2.2
million speakers found primarily in
Slovenia, but also among indigenous
minorities in neighbouring countries,
and in certain traditional countries of
emigration.
It uses the Latin alphabet (minus the
letters q, w, x and y) plus the diacritics
č, š and ž, making 25 letters in total.
Slovenian has conserved many words
of Indo‑European origin and some
characteristics of Old Slavic, along
with 3 000 Slavic root‑words. It
has also been influenced by Latin,
German, Hungarian, Friulian and
Venetian.
Considering the country’s size,
Slovenian has an extraordinary
number of dialects: 37 dialects and
12 sub‑dialects, many of which
do not lend themselves to mutual
understanding.
The language of love?
Slovenian is a highly inflected
language with three genders, six cases
and three grammatical numbers. In
addition to the singular and plural
forms, there is also the dual form,
inherited from Indo‑European.
The dual is used when there are exactly
two objects (except, paradoxically, for
natural pairs such as glasses or hands)
or two people. Slovenian – whose
name contains the word ‘love’, after
all – is thus particularly well suited
to expressing intimacy between a
couple.
A question of national
identity
The ‘Republic of Slovenia’ did not
suddenly appear in 1991: it already
existed as a national federated state
within the Yugoslav Federation.
It is true that before 1941 Slovenia was
merely an administrative division in a
united, monarchist Yugoslavia, but
there was institutional recognition
of its national identity. It had its
own national university, and its
language – regarded as a component
of Serbo‑Croato‑Slovenian, a single,
three‑in‑one language that was
somewhat phantasmal – was widely
used at all levels of education and in
public life.
Before 1918 Slovenians were spread
across several countries of the
Habsburg Empire, but they already
had a national name, a relatively
diverse society, national political
parties and a codified language that
was used in primary education and
boasted a rich literature.
The Slovenian people had gradually
acquired these characteristics over
the course of the 19th century. They
had become a nation.
Languages
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46
What about
‘prehistory’?
The Slovenian language has ancient
roots. In the 7th century, after the great
migrations, Slavs in the Alps founded
the principality of Carantania, the
centre of which was located in what
is now Carinthia, in Austria. The
principality became part of the
Frankish State through a series of
military alliances with the Bavarians.
Along with other proto‑Slovenian
entities, it lost its aristocracy after
a revolt at the beginning of the 9th
century. The population was now
subjugated under the feudal system,
but managed to preserve its language.
German subsequently reigned
supreme for several centuries,
relegating Slovenian to the status of a
peasant language.
First writings: from
evangelism to a
modern language
The first texts in Slovenian were the
Freising Manuscripts. Written for
evangelical purposes, they date back
to the late 10th or early 11th century.
Several religious manuscripts from
the Middle Ages show traces of a
pre‑literary koiné language.
The first Slovenian words by a
known author are a verse included
by the Minnesänger (poet‑musician)
Ulrich von Liechtenstein in his 1238
work. He narrates his travels, dressed
as a woman, in search of chivalry
tournaments – a remarkable case of
courtly cross‑dressing.
The written language emerged fully
in the 16th century, during the time of
Protestantism. Around 30 religious
works were published, including a
complete translation of the Bible
(1584) by Jurij  Dalmatin. Slovenian
was one of the first languages into
which the Bible was translated.
The same year saw the publication
of the first Slovenian grammar
book, by Adam  Bohorič. The
first dictionary (German-Latin-
Slovenian-Italian) was published
in 1592 by Hieronymus  Megiser.
After the Counter-Reformation,
the Catholic liturgy continued
to use the Slovenian vernacular.
From 1774, it spread further as a
result of compulsory literacy and
schooling.
Developments in the years that
followed include:
• a Catholic translation of the
Bible (1784‑1802)
• the first Slovenian newspaper
(1797‑1801)
• the first collection of secular
poems, including a wacky ode to
flatulence (1801)
• an academic grammar book
(1808).
The age of Slovenian
literature
The poet and first Slovenian journalist
Valentin  Vodnik (1758‑1819) wrote
most of the primary school textbooks
used during the time of the Illyrian
Provinces (1809‑1814). The French
authorities recognised Slovenian as
an official language, which is why
Slovenia has the only monument to
Napoleon outside France.
All of this contributed to the rise his literary activity and his political
of France Prešeren (1800‑1849), engagement. Among other things, he
whose works make him the greatest
Slovenian poet. The national anthem
adopted in 1989 was written by
promoted the idea of a Yugoslavian
state.
After the First World War, most of
him in 1844. He advocated the
peaceful cohabitation of all peoples,
the territory inhabited by Slovenians
who should ‘be neighbours and not
became part of Yugoslavia, with
Slovenian as one of the national
enemies’. In March 2020 the anthem
languages. After 1945, it was virtually
received the European Heritage Label
for its promotion of European ideals,
the only language used by government
institutions in Slovenia. In 1991 it
values, history and integration.
became the national language of a
sovereign state, and it has been an
EU official language since 2004.
Beyond literature...
The struggle of Slovenian troops
in the aftermath of the First World
War, the resistance movement
during the Second World War and
the 10‑day war against the federal
army in 1991 all show that the
nation and its people no longer
rely exclusively on books for their
defence.
Politics and literature are
gradually parting ways, although
intellectuals played a decisive
role in preparing and securing the
Freising manuscript. Credits: Domain
public. Marjan Smerke, on en.wikipedia country’s independence. However,
both their role and that of the
Slovenian language are changing
as Slovenia becomes more
Romanticism accelerated the rapid
integrated with, and interdependent
growth of literature in the 19th
on, the rest of the world against a
century. In 1848, with revolutions
backdrop of increasing globalisation.
breaking out across Europe, Slovenian
Will the dual, that archaic
intellectuals published the first
political programme in support of a grammatical form inherited from
‘unified Slovenia’, and the Slovenian a time when two things or people
were just as important as a multitude,
national flag came into existence.
be able to withstand the wars of our
Literature blossomed during the
time?
second half of the 19th century.
Creative expression was no
longer confined solely to matters
Authors: Vera Pejovič
of education and patriotism. and Maksimiljan Gulič
Nevertheless, for a long time writers
continued to play a decisive role in
public life. Ivan Cankar (1876‑1918),
the greatest Slovenian writer,
invigorated his era through both
Languages
our living history
47
Finnish – the long road from
vernacular to European language
The story of the Finnish language is one of centuries-
long existence as an unwritten secondary vernacular, of
political and administrative subordination, and of relative
isolation from other European languages. It is also a story
of human and cultural migration, national awakening, the
dedication of the champions of a national language and,
finally, recognition as one of the EU’s official languages
upon Finland’s accession to the EU in 1995. Translation has
played a vital role in this story.
There is no absolute certainty about the geographical
origins of Finnish, but most researchers trace it back
to a Proto-Uralic language spoken in the forest belt
around the Ural Mountains and/or midway down the
River Volga some 4 000 to 6 000 years ago. It is through
its Proto‑Uralic past that Finnish is related to Estonian
and Hungarian, the two other EU members of the same
Finno-Ugric language family. But while Finnish and
Estonian, which belong to the Baltic‑Finnic group of the
family, are still close relatives today, they parted ways with
Hungarian several thousand years ago. Therefore, the
kinship is now distant.
From spoken to written language
For hundreds of years, until the end of the Middle Ages,
Finnish remained solely a spoken language. In the 15th
century, when large parts of Finland were already under
Swedish rule, Swedish was used for administration, Latin
for religious services and German for any larger‑scale
business.
The situation changed when Mikael Agricola, Bishop of
Turku and a former student of Martin Luther, created the
first writing system for Finnish. The need for a structured
linguistic foundation arose through his translation work.
According to the basic tenets of the Reformation, material
was needed for clergymen to be able to address the people
in their own language. In 1548, Agricola published his
main work, the Finnish translation of the New Testament.
After Agricola’s ground-breaking work, written Finnish
did not make any major progress until the 19th century.
In 1809, after a war between Sweden and Russia, Finland
became a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire. However,
Languages
our living history
48
except for some limited periods, the time under Russian
rule did not see any serious effort to impose the Russian
language on the Finns. Instead, Swedish remained the
main language for administrative purposes, and a period
of intensive development of Finnish began.
Reaching maturity
The development of Finnish in the 19th century was driven
by a strong nationalist movement. The leading nationalists,
many of whom were actually Swedish‑speakers, such as
the philosopher and poet J.V. Snellman, realised that the
budding nation needed a national language.
Finland also got its national epic, Kalevala, in 1835, as
Elias  Lönnrot, a physician by profession, collected folk
poetry and ballads on his expeditions to rural Finland
and Russian Karelia and wove them into a coherent tale.
Written in the so‑called Kalevala metre, a form of trochaic
tetrameter, the saga has been translated into more than
50 languages. It has inspired numerous writers (including
J.R.R. Tolkien), composers (such as Jean  Sibelius),
painters and other artists.
The first great Finnish novel saw the light of day in
1870, when Aleksis Kivi published his Seitsemän veljestä
(Seven Brothers), a story about the evolution of a pack
of brothers from freedom‑loving and reckless young men
to respectable pillars of society. Despite some archaic
elements, Kivi’s expression was already amazingly close to
present‑day Finnish.
By about 1880, the project of developing a national
language had advanced to a point at which the birth of
modern Finnish was a reality. It had taken decades of
devoted work to create new vocabulary, to standardise
The Defense of the Sampo, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1896.
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
grammar and to promote the use of Finnish in
administration and at different levels of education.
Translators of foreign scientific, religious and literary
works played a significant role in this development.
Finland’s current language regime, with Finnish and
Swedish as national languages, was eventually confirmed
in the Constitution Act of 1919, after Finland’s declaration
of independence in 1917. Today, some 4.9 million people
in Finland speak Finnish as their first language and half
a million as their second language. In addition, there
are Finnish‑speakers abroad, most notably in Sweden
(where Finnish is officially a minority language) with up
to 400 000 people speaking or understanding Finnish or
Tornedalian Finnish (meänkieli), and in smaller numbers
in Norway, North America and Russia.
Odd one out
Although Finnish has, at different stages of its history,
adopted a great deal of vocabulary and other elements
from other languages (Proto‑Baltic, Slavic, Germanic,
Swedish and, most recently, English), it has remained a
largely opaque language to most other Europeans.
This probably explains the fact that, traditionally, Finnish
has contributed little to other European languages. In
terms of vocabulary, such words as sisu (a state of mind
combining determination and tenacity), sauna, salmiakki
(salty liquorice), rapakivi (a type of granite rock), aapa (a
type of mire), pulkka (pulk, a small toboggan) and perhaps
the latest addition, kalsarikänni (a Finnish version of the
Danish hygge, i.e. getting drunk alone at home, dressed
cosily in one’s underwear), could be listed.
Languages
our living history
49
This linguistic distance from the rest of the world may
also explain why, apart from some exceptions, such as
Mika Waltari’s seminal novel Sinuhe egyptiläinen (The
Egyptian) or Arto Paasilinna’s bestsellers, Finnish literary
works long faced difficulties in crossing cultural barriers
and finding an audience outside Finland. However,
this has changed during the last few decades. Today,
around 300 Finnish books, both fiction and non‑fiction,
by writers such as Sofi  Oksanen, Salla  Simukka and
Antti Tuomainen, are translated each year into some 40
different languages.
The accession of Finnish into the EU was not altogether
painless. For many of those already in the EU, it was
difficult to grasp that a language could differ in so many
respects from the Indo‑European ones. Numerous
queries from non‑speakers to Finnish translators ensued
concerning seeming surface‑level ‘inconsistencies’ in the
Finnish‑language versions. Gradually, Finnish found a
firmer footing, in particular after the arrival of linguistic
reinforcements in the form of Estonian and Hungarian
in 2004. Together, the three have added a Finno‑Ugric
dimension, an element of ‘linguistic otherness’, to the EU
language regime.
Reversing the recipe for success?
As for many other smaller languages, the dominance
of English now poses a certain existential threat for
Finnish. This has to do not so much with borrowing new
vocabulary – even if that is done extensively – as with a
willingness to give up using Finnish in certain areas, such
as business, research and IT. Ironically, while the national
education system helped Finnish develop into a mature
language during the latter half of the 19th century, it is
now doing almost the opposite, as study programmes and
courses offered in English are becoming more common
at all levels.
Finnish rose because it was consciously held in high regard
and cultivated. While it is still strong, it may decline if it
is consciously or unconsciously perceived as second‑rate
and deprived of nurture.
Author: Erkka Vuorinen
 A diacritical mass
Swedish is still a relatively small language, spoken as
mother tongue by some 9 million people, predominantly
in Sweden and in parts of Finland. There is actually a
tiny minority of Swedish speakers in Estonia, too. This
reflects a period in history when Sweden was an expansive
kingdom.
Today, however, it’s not a growing kingdom that spreads
our language into the world. It’s IKEA.
At the end of 2017, IKEA and its founder Ingvar Kamprad
were awarded the Nordic Association’s language prize for
‘the most significant contribution to making Nordic words
and expressions and Nordic culture known throughout
the world. Tack and Hej då meet customers, and furniture
names are not translated. Thus we [other peoples] in the
Nordic region also learn the Swedish words lingon, godis,
glass, sovdags, tupplur and gäspa (lingonberry, sweets, ice
cream, bedtime, nap and yawn ).’
While other Swedish companies which expanded
internationally often ‘internationalised’ their names
Fitting Swedish together: from (from Skånska cementg juteriet to Skanska, from Göta
Bank to Gota), IKEA went in the other direction, making
Do try this at home
I doubt whether many Swedish‑speakers have avoided
this question from international friends: ‘What does it
mean, this Björnarp, Skäggört, Ledberg…?’ Well, there are
certain principles, even if they are not without exceptions:
Nordic place names for sofas (Kramfors, Ekenäs,
Bråthult), flowers and plants for bed linen (Rosenfibbla,
Vägtistel, Ängslilja), boys’ names for shelves (Billy, Ivar,
Albert), girls’ names for fabrics (Fredrika, Aina, Minna).
Nouns and verbs are also used, often in a rather clever
way. Tupplur means ‘nap’ and is used for blackout blinds.
The economy pack of paper napkins goes under the name
of Storätare, or ‘glutton’. Another good example is fake
plants. They are called Fejka – an English word adopted
and adapted into Swedish, and now exported out into the
world again.
For those who have ever bought anything from IKEA and
want to know what the name of their coffee table or frying
pan means, you can of course ask a Swedish‑speaking
friend. Alternatively, there is an online IKEA dictionary
compiled by an expat Swede. Maybe he felt a bit homesick
and longed for a tupplur in an Äpplarö in the shade of an
apple tree.

ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚴ to IKEA the letters å, ä and ö an important feature of its brand.

Always trend‑aware, the firm has adapted its naming Author: Monica Lövström
policy over the years. (Sadly for the undersigned, when
In the 8th century, Old Norse, a Germanic language, was the name Monica became less popular, it also disappeared
from IKEA stock.)
spoken in Scandinavia. From this the Swedish language
developed alongside Danish as an East Scandinavian Credits: Vadim Andrushchenko Adobe Stock
language (the West Scandinavian languages being Faroese,
Icelandic and Norwegian). The people who could write at
that time used the Futhark alphabet (ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚴ), comprising Tupplur
16 runes. While inscriptions on runestones can still be
found, those on perishable materials like bone and wood are
very rare.
An early example of this Scandinavian language Around this time, the dialects in Denmark
in the wider world are the runes in Hagia Sofia and Sweden started to diverge from each
in Istanbul, which date back to the 11th century. other, finally developing into the Danish and
Though they were already quite worn down by Swedish languages. The two languages are still Fejka
the time of their discovery in 1964, they are mutually intelligible, even if we sometimes
decipherable as something like ‘Halfdan was need to make an extra effort when speaking to
here’. This Halfdan was probably a member of someone whose dialect differs markedly from
the Varangian Guard, whose members served as the standard language – or when we are playing
bodyguards to the Byzantine emperor. each other at football.

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50 51
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