THREEMONTHS 1

TOPIC:EUROPEAN DAY OF
ALL LANGUAGES

SUBJECT:ENGLISH

CLASS:IXA

WORKED BY:REI CEKICI

The European Day of Languages (EDL) was first celebrated in 2001 during
the European Year of Languages. At the end of this campaign the Council of
Europe's Committee of Ministers decided to make EDL an annual event, to
be celebrated each 26 September. Every year, millions of people in the
Council's member states and elsewhere organise or take part in activities to
promote linguistic diversity and the ability to speak other languages.

There are about 225 indigenous languages in Europe – roughly 3% of the

world's total.[5] Most of the European languages are of Indo-European
origin. Since the end of the 18th century, the most widespread language of
Europe (both in terms of geography and the number of native speakers)
has been Russian, which replaced French. Counting only native speakers,
approximately 150 million Europeans speak Russian on a daily basis,
followed by German (approx. 95 mil.), Turkish (approx. 80 mil.), English
and French (each by 65 mil.), Italian (by 60 mil.), Spanish and Polish (40
mil. each), Ukrainian (30 mil.) and Romanian (26 mil.). As far as foreign
language studies are concerned, English is currently the most popular
foreign language in Europe, followed by German, French, Italian, Russian
and Spanish.
The general aim is to draw attention to Europe's rich linguistic and cultural
diversity, which has to be encouraged and maintained, but also to extend
the range of languages that people learn throughout their lives in order to
develop their plurilingual skills and reinforce intercultural understanding.
EDL is an opportunity to celebrate all of Europe's languages, including
those that are less widely spoken and the languages of migrants. The
European Day of Languages is observed 26 September, as proclaimed by
the Council of Europe on 6 December 2001, at the end of the European Year
of Languages (2001), which had been jointly organised by the Council of
Europe and the European Union. Its aim is to encourage language learning
across Europe.

The outermost regions (ORs) are nine remote areas of the European Union,
belonging to France (Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Réunion, Martinique,
Mayotte and Saint-Martin), Portugal (the Azores and Madeira), and Spain
(the Canary Islands). Because of their geographic particularities, their
culture and language present features that differ from those that we can
find on the European continent.

Throughout Europe, 800 million Europeans are represented in the Council

of Europe's 47 member states and all are encouraged to discover more
languages at any age, as part of or alongside their studies. This stems from
the Council of Europe’s conviction that linguistic diversity is a tool for
achieving greater intercultural understanding and a key element in the rich
cultural heritage of our continent. Therefore, the Council of Europe, in
Strasbourg, promotes plurilingualism in the whole of Europe.

At the Council of Europe’s initiative, the European Day of Languages has

been celebrated every year since 2001 on 26 September - together with the
European Commission.

Let’s move now to the American region. On the continent, French Guiana is
located to north of Brazil, and French is the official language, but they
especially speak French Guianese Creole, that has some similarities with
Antillean Creole because of their vocabulary of African origin, but that has
been more influenced by Brazilian Portuguese. In the Caribbean Sea, we
can visit the rest of the French ORs. On the island of Martinique, where
French is the official language, Creole resembles French a lot and it is the
mother tongue of most of the population, but both languages can be learnt
at school. It is very interesting to mention that in both Martinique and
French Guiana it is possible to study Creole at university and to obtain a
degree in a master course or a doctoral programme in the field. In
Martinique there is also a group of researchers working on decoding the
origins of their Creole

Near Martinique we find Guadeloupe. On this island, apart from the official
language, French, they have the Guadeloupean Creole, as well as some
communities of speakers of Haitian Creole and English, and actually
Guadeloupean Creole is considered to be a fusion of French, English, and
African languages. Finally, we have the island of Saint Martin, where people
speak Creole and have French as the official language – in the French part;
the south, Sint Maarten, is the Dutch part, considered as a country under
Dutch law. English is also commonly used.