About Languages

of Europe
 26 September - European Day of
Languages
○ 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.
 The Official Languages of the
European Union:
○ As an international organisation, the EU has the biggest number
of official languages.
○ The EU has 24 official working languages that are :
○ Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian,
Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian,
Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak,
Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish. Although the European Union has
24 official languages, mainly 3 are used as working languages in
the European institutions: French, English, and German. 
 Objectives
○ The general objectives of the European Day of
Languages are to: • Alert the public to the
importance of language learning, diversity and
the range of languages learned in order to
increase plurilingualism and intercultural
understanding • Promote the rich linguistic
and cultural diversity of Europe • Encourage
lifelong language learning in and out of school.
 Which language is most used in
Europe?
○ English is still the most spoken language in the EU by
far, with German now spoken by 36% of citizens and
French spoken by 29% of the EU's new smaller
population of 446 million people. Italian comes fourth
at 18%, followed by 17% for Spanish.
Which is the most old language in
Europe?

○ The Greek language is the oldest language in

Europe, spoken since 1450 years before
Christ. Currently Greek is spoken in Greece,
Albania and Cyprus. About 13 million people
still speak Greek today.
How many countries celebrate
European Day of Languages?
○ The European Year of Languages was successful in
involving millions of people across 45 countries in
activities to celebrate linguistic diversity and the
benefits of being able to speak another language.
THANKS!

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