European Day of Languages 2021

Each September EUNIC Malaysia invites you to join us at the European Day of Languages!

When is the European Day of Languages?

The European Day of Languages is held on the 26th of September every year.

How did the European Day of Languages start?

The Council of Europe and the European Union jointly organised the European Year of Languages in 2001. Millions of people from 45 countries participated in activities to promote language learning and the preservation of cultural diversity.

The European Year of Languages was so successful that the Council of Europe declared that the European Day of Languages should be celebrated every year from then on.

Fun Facts about European Languages:

• There are more than 225 languages spoken in Europe, representing around 3% of the world’s total languages.
• If you only count native speakers, Russian is the most spoken language in Europe. However, English comes out on top if you include second-language speakers.
• Languages are sometimes related to each other if they come from similar roots. These are known as ‘language families’. The three main language families in Europe are Germanic, Romance and Slavic.
• Most European languages use the Latin alphabet and some Slavic languages use the Cyrillic alphabet. Armenian, Georgian, Greek and Yiddish have their own alphabet.
• London is the most linguistically diverse city in the world, as over 250 languages are spoken there.

How many languages are spoken in Europe?

The European Union has 24 official languages, these are; Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish. However, there are many, many more languages spoken in Europe that aren't official languages of the EU, such as Luxembourgish. It's estimated that there are over 225 languages spoken altogether. That leaves you an awful lot to choose from when it comes to picking what to research on your European languages day of learning!

What is the newest European language?

The language which has most recently become an official language of the European Union is Croatian, which took the total official EU languages up to 24 in 2013.

Which is the oldest European language?

This is a topic that's very much up for debate among researchers and language historians. Languages naturally change and mingle with each other over time, so it can be difficult to track their history. However, many historians believe that Euskera, the language spoken in the Basque Country, is most likely to be the oldest European language. Euskera is a very unusual language as it is what linguists call a ‘language isolate’, meaning it doesn't share any relation to any other languages.

Another contender for the oldest language in the world is Albanian. The oldest known example of written Albanian dates back to 1462, but in spoken form it's thought to date back many centuries further.

Both of these could be fascinating to research on your European languages day of learning!