Chameleon, a symbol of the multilingualism of the European Union.
The 'languages of the European Union' are
languages used by people within the member states of the
European Union. They include the twenty-three
official languages of the European Union along with a range of others. The EU asserts on its
Europa homepage: "Languages: Europe's asset" and has a
European Commissioner for Multilingualism,
Leonard Orban.
In the European Union,
language policy is the responsibility of member states and EU does not have a common language policy; European Union institutions play a supporting role in this field, based on the "principle of
subsidiarity". Their role is to promote cooperation between the member states and to promote the European dimension in the member states language policies. The EU encourages all its citizens to be
multilingual; specifically, it encourages them to be able to speak two languages in addition to their
mother tongue. Though the EU has very limited influence in this area as the content of educational systems is the responsibility of individual member states, a number of EU funding programmes actively promote
language learning and
linguistic diversity.
[1]
Official languages of the European Union
The
official languages of the
European Union, as stipulated in the amended EEC Council: Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community of
1958-04-15,
[1] are:
[2]
The number of member states exceeds the number of official languages, as several national languages are shared by two or more countries. Namely, Dutch is official in the
Netherlands and
Belgium, French in
France,
Belgium and
Luxembourg, German in
Germany,
Austria,
Belgium, and
Luxembourg, and Greek in
Greece and
Cyprus. English and Swedish are also shared, the former by the
United Kingdom, the
Republic of Ireland and
Malta and the latter by
Sweden and
Finland, but the fact that they are co-official in Ireland, Malta and Finland, with Irish, Maltese and Finnish respectively, means that the overall ratio of member states to national languages is unaffected.
Furthermore, not all national languages have been accorded the status of official EU languages. These include
Luxembourgish, an official language of Luxembourg since 1984, and
Turkish, an official language of Cyprus.
All languages of the EU are also
working languages.
[3] Documents which a Member State or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a Member State sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply shall be drafted in the same language. Regulations and other documents of general application shall be drafted in the twenty-three official languages. The
Official Journal of the European Union shall be published in the twenty-three official languages.
Legislation and documents of major public importance or interest are produced in all twenty-three official languages, but that accounts for a minority of the institutions' work. Other documents (e.g. communications with the national authorities, decisions addressed to particular individuals or entities and correspondence) are translated only into the languages needed. For internal purposes the EU institutions are allowed by law to choose their own language arrangements. The
European Commission, for example, conducts its internal business in three languages,
English,
French and
German, and goes fully multilingual only for public information and communication purposes. The
European Parliament, on the other hand, has Members who need working documents in their own languages, so its document flow is fully multilingual from the outset.
[2] Non-institutional EU bodies are not legally obliged to make language arrangement for all the 23 languages (Kik v.
OHIM, Case No. C-361/01, 2003
ECJ I-8283).
According to the EU's English language website,
[3] the cost of maintaining the institutions' policy of multilingualism (i.e. the cost of translation and interpretation) is €1123 million, which is 1% of the annual general budget of the EU, or €2.28 per person per year.
Maltese
Though
Maltese is an official language, the Council had set up a transitional period of three years from
May 1,
2004, during which the institutions would not be obliged to draft all acts in Maltese.
[4] It was agreed then the Council could extend the transitional period for a further year, but it decided not to.
[5] That means all new acts of the institutions had to be adopted and published in Maltese from
April 30,
2007.
Irish
Although the
Irish language has been one of the official languages of the European Union only since
January 1 2007, it is the
Republic of Ireland's first official language, and has minority-language status in
Northern Ireland. Since the
Republic of Ireland's accession to the
European Economic Community (now the European Union) in
1973, EU treaties have been published and authenticated in Irish - as an official treaty language - as well as the EU official languages, and one has been able to make written submissions to Union institutions in Irish. On
13 June 2005, following a unanimous decision by EU foreign ministers (667th Meeting of the
Council of the European Union, Luxembourg
[6]), it was announced that Irish would be made the 21st official language of the EU but a derogation stipulates that not all documents have to be translated into Irish as is the case with the other official languages.
[7] [8]The decision means that legislation approved by both the
European Parliament and the
Council of Ministers will now be translated into Irish, and interpretation from Irish will be available at European Parliament plenary sessions and some Council meetings. The new arrangements came into effect on
1 January,
2007. The cost of translation, interpretation, publication and legal services involved in making Irish an official EU language is estimated at just under €3.5 million a year.
[9] The derogation will be reviewed in four years and every five years thereafter.
Irish is the only official language of the Union that is not the most widely spoken language in any member state - 2006 census figures show that in the Republic of Ireland there are 1.66 million speakers of Irish out of a population of 4.24 million, though only 0.54 million use Irish day-to-day. About 355,000 speak it as their mother tongue. It is also estimated that 165,000 people in Northern Ireland can also speak some Irish. There are small but slowly growing diaspora communities that speak Irish around the world, the largest being in the
United States, with 25,000 Irish speakers.
[10]
Status of regional and minority languages
The Spanish governments have sought to give some official status in the EU for Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician. The 2667th Council Meeting of the
Council of the European Union in Luxembourg on
13 June 2005 decided to authorise limited use at EU level of languages recognised by Member States other than the official working languages. The Council granted recognition to "languages other than the languages referred to in Council Regulation No 1/1958 whose status is recognised by the Constitution of a Member State on all or part of its territory or the use of which as a national language is authorised by law." The official use of such languages will be authorised on the basis of an administrative arrangement concluded between the Council and the requesting Member State.
[11]
Luxembourgish, an official language of Luxembourg, and Turkish, an official language of Cyprus, have not yet used this provision.
Catalan, Galician, and Basque
Although
Catalan,
Galician and
Basque are not nation-wide official languages in Spain, as co-official languages in the respective regions (pursuant to Spain's constitution, among other documents) they are eligible to benefit from official use in EU institutions under the terms of the
13 June 2005 resolution of the Council of the European Union. The Spanish government has assented to the provisions in respect of these languages.
The status of Catalan, spoken by many millions of citizens, has been the subject of particular debate. On
11 December 1990, the use of Catalan was the subject of a
European Parliament Resolution (resolution A3-169/90 on languages in the (European) Community and the situation of
Catalan (
OJ-C19,
28 January 1991).
On
November 16 2005, the
Committee of the Regions President
Peter Straub signed an agreement with the Spanish Ambassador to the EU,
Carlos Sagües Bastarreche, approving the use of Spanish regional languages in an EU institution for the first time in a meeting on that day, with interpretation provided by
European Commission interpreters.
[12] [13]
On
July 3 2006, the European Parliament’s Bureau approved a proposal by the Spanish State to allow citizens to address the European Parliament in Basque, Catalan and Galician, two months after its initial rejection.
[14] [15]
On
November 30 2006, the
European Ombudsman,
Nikiforos Diamandouros, and the Spanish ambassador in the EU, Carlos Bastarreche, signed an agreement in Brussels to allow Spanish citizens to address complaints to the European Ombudsman in Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician, all three co-official languages in Spain.
[16] According to the agreement, a translation body, which will be set up and financed by the Spanish government, will be responsible for translating complaints submitted in these languages. In turn, it will translate the Ombudsman's decisions from Spanish/Castilian into the language of the complainant. Until such a body is established the agreement will not become effective.
Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Scots
In response to a written parliamentary question tabled following the
2005-06-13 resolution on official use of regional languages, the UK Minister for Europe,
Douglas Alexander, stated on
2005-06-29 that "The Government have no current plans to make similar provisions for UK languages."
Provision in the proposed constitutional treaty
The
Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was drafted in the (that time) 21 official treaty languages of the EU (the official languages, plus Irish), in the languages of three candidate countries:
Romanian,
Bulgarian, and
Turkish (of which Romania and Bulgaria have now joined the union). It contains the following provision:
Note that the Constitution has been signed by all Member States and is in the ratification process. Following its rejection in referendums in France and the Netherlands, as matters stand it will not come into force.
Migrant languages
Migrant languages are not given formal status or recognition in the EU or in the EU countries and
they are not covered by EU language-teaching programmes. Only national and local authorities may
provide classes to help immigrants learn the language of their adopted country.
[17]
National sign languages in the European Union
Roughly one person in one thousand uses a national
sign language as a first language, however there are many more that use one as their second language. An increasing number of countries have some form of
recognition of their national sign language such as Belgium with Flemish Sign Language (VGT) and Belgian-French Sign Language (LSFB), the United Kingdom with British Sign Language (BSL). In Northern Ireland, Irish Sign Language (ISL) and Northern Ireland Sign Language (NISL) are recognised as official languages.
On
1988-06-17, the
European Parliament unanimously approved a Resolution about national Sign Languages. This resolution asks all Member States for recognition of their national sign languages as official languages which would bring better linguistic rights and protection for sign language users especially the deaf users of sign language.
Name of the European Union
Official languages
This is a list of the name of the
European Union in its 23 official languages:
★ ''Европейски съюз'' (''Evropeyski Səyuz'';
Bulgarian)
★ ''Evropská unie'' (
Czech)
★ ''Den Europæiske Union'' (
Danish)
★ ''Europese Unie'' (
Dutch)
★ European Union (
English)
★ ''Euroopa Liit'' (
Estonian)
★ ''Euroopan unioni'' (
Finnish)
★ ''Union européenne'' (
French)
★ ''Europäische Union'' (
German)
★ ''Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση'' (''Evropaikí Énosi'';
Greek)
★ ''Európai Unió'' (
Hungarian)
★ ''An tAontas Eorpach'' (
Irish)
★ ''Unione Europea'' (
Italian)
★ ''Eiropas Savienība'' (
Latvian)
★ ''Europos Sąjunga'' (
Lithuanian)
★ ''L-Unjoni Ewropea'' (
Maltese)
★ ''Unia Europejska'' (
Polish)
★ ''União Europeia'' (
Portuguese)
★ ''Uniunea Europeană'' (
Romanian)
★ ''Európska únia'' (
Slovak)
★ ''Evropska unija'' (
Slovenian)
★ ''Unión Europea'' (
Spanish)
★ ''Europeiska unionen'' (
Swedish)
Other languages
The draft
European constitution has also been translated into the official languages of the three candidate countries. The names of the European Union in these languages are as follows:
★ Europska unija (
Croatian)
★ Европска Унија (''Evropska Unija'';
Macedonian)
★ Avrupa Birliği (
Turkish)
The name in the languages of official prospective candidate countries are:
★ Bashkimi Europian (
Albanian)
★ Evropska unija/Европска унија (
Bosnian,
Serbian)
The name in some other languages of European Union states are:
★ Unión Europeya (
Aragonese)
★ Xunión Europea (
Asturian)
★ Europar Batasuna (
Basque)
★ Unvaniezh Europa (
Breton)
★ Unió Europea (
Catalan)
★ Unyans Europek (
Cornish)
★ Unione Europea (
Corsican)
★ Jeropeeske Uny (
Frisian)
★ Union Europeane (
Friulian)
★ Unión Europea (
Galician)
★ Uniùn d'Euròpa (
Western Lombard)
★ Eùropejskô Ùnijô (
Kashubian)
★ Europäisch Union (
Low German)
★ Europäesch Unioun (
Luxembourgish)
★ Ounion Ouropeia (
Mirandese)
★ Eurohpa Uniovdna (
Sami)
★ Unione Europea (
Sardinian)
★ Aonadh Eòrpach (
Scottish Gaelic)
★ Uniuni Europea (
Sicilian)
★ Union Uropeyinne (
Walloon)
★ Undeb Ewropeaidd (
Welsh)
The name in some other languages is:
★ الاتحاد الأوروبي (''al-Ittiḥād al-'Ūrūbī'',
Arabic)
★ Եվրոպական Միություն (''Evropakan Miutyun'';
Armenian)
★ 欧洲联盟 (
Simplified) /歐洲聯盟 (
Traditional) (
Pinyin: ''Oūzhou Liánméng'',
Chinese)
★ Eŭropa Unio (
Esperanto)
★ Evropeiska samveldið (
Faroese)
★ Kaisahang Yuropeo (
Filipino)
★ האיחוד האירופי () (
Hebrew)
★ यूरोपीय संघ (;
Hindi)
★ Evrópusambandið (
Icelandic)
★ Uni Eropa (
Indonesian)
★ Union Europee (
Interlingua)
★ 欧州連合 (''Ōshū Rengō'') or ヨーロッパ連合 (''Yōroppa Rengō'') (
Japanese)
★ 유럽연합/유럽聯合 (Yureop Yeonhap) (
Korean)
★ Unio Europaea (
Latin)
★ Den europeiske union (
Norwegian Bokmål)
★ Den europeiske unionen (
Norwegian Nynorsk)
★ Европейский Союз (''Evropeyskiy Soyuz'';
Russian)
★ สหภาพยุโรป (
Thai)
★ Європейський Союз (''Jevropejśkyj Sojuz'';
Ukrainian)
★ یورپی یونین (
Urdu)
★ Оврўпа бирлиги (
Uzbek)
★ ஐரோப்பிய ஒன்றியம் (
Tamil)
Language skills of European Union citizens
The following tables are based on "Special
Eurobarometer 243" of the European Commission with the title "Europeans and their Languages" (
summary full text), published on February 2006 with research carried out on November and December 2005. The survey was published before the 2007
Enlargement of the European Union, when Bulgaria and Romania acceded. This is a
poll, not a
census. 28,694 citizens with a minimum age of 15 were asked in the then 25 member-states as well as in the then future member-states (Bulgaria, Romania) and the candidate countries (Croatia, Turkey) at the time of the survey. Only citizens, not immigrants, were asked.
The first table shows what proportion of citizens said that they could have a conversation in each language as their
mother tongue and as a
second language or
foreign language (only the languages with at least 2% of the speakers are listed):
At 18% of the total number of speakers, German is the most widely spoken mother tongue, while English is the most widely spoken language at 51%. 100% of Hungarians, 100% of Portuguese, and 99% of Greeks speak their state language as their mother tongue.
The knowledge of foreign languages varies considerably in the specific countries, as the table below shows. The three most used, and spoken second or foreign languages in the EU are
English,
German and
French. When no rate is noted, the language is not one of the three most spoken second or foreign languages in this country. The cases coloured in blue means that the language is one/the official language of the country and dark blue means it is the main language spoken in the country. The column mean show the mathematical mean of the three percentages (i.e. how 'multilingual' a country's inhabitants are), it was not part of the official survey and may be not relevant for countries where German, French or English is an official language (for such countries, one can take the mean of the other two languages).
Knowledge of English
Knowledge of German (different scale from English)
Knowledge of French (same scale as German)
56% of citizens in the EU Member States are able to hold a conversation in one language apart from their mother tongue. This is 9 points more than was perceived in 2001 among the 15 Member States at the time
[19]. 28% of the respondents state that they speak two foreign languages well enough to have a conversation. Still, almost half of the respondents, 44%, admit not knowing any other language than their mother tongue. Approximately 1 in 5 Europeans can be described as an active language learner, i.e. someone who has recently improved his/her language skills or intends to do so over the following 12 months.
English remains the most widely spoken foreign language throughout Europe. 38% of EU citizens state that they have sufficient skills in English to have a conversation (apart from the citizens of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, the two English-speaking countries). 14% of Europeans indicate that they know either French or German along with their mother tongue. French is most commonly studied and used in Southern Europe, especially in Mediterranean countries, in Germany, Romania, the UK and Ireland while German is commonly studied and used in the Benelux countries, in Scandinavia and in the newer EU member states. In 19 out of 29 countries polled, English is the most widely known language apart from the mother tongue, this being particularly the case in Sweden (89%), Malta (an ex-British colony) (88%) and the Netherlands (87%), while German and French is so in three countries. Moreover, the citizens of the EU think they speak English at a better level than any other second or foreign language. 77% of EU citizens believe that children should learn English and that it's considered the number one language to learn in all countries where the research conducted but the United Kingdom, Ireland and Luxembourg.
All in all, English either as a mother tongue or as a second/foreign language is spoken by 51% of EU citizens, followed by German with 32% and French with 28% of those asked.
With the enlargement of the European Union, the balance between French and German is slowly changing. Clearly more citizens in the new Member States master German (23% compared with 12% in the EU15) while their skills in French and Spanish are scarce (3% and 1% respectively compared with 16% and 7% among the EU15 group). A notable exception is Romania, where 24% of the population speaks French as a foreign language compared to 6% who speaks German as a foreign language (also 4% of the population speaks Italian as a foreign language, while 3% of the population speaks Spanish as a foreign language).
It is worth pointing out that language skills are unevenly distributed both over the geographical area of Europe and over sociodemographic groups. Reasonably good language competences are perceived in relatively small Member States with several state languages, lesser used native languages or "language exchange” with neighbouring countries. This is the case for example in Luxembourg where 92% speak at least two languages. Those who live in Southern European countries or countries where one of the major European languages is a state language appear to have moderate language skills. Only 5% of Turkish, 13% of Irish, 16% of Italians, 17% of Spanish and 18% from the UK speak at least two languages apart from their mother tongue. A "multilingual" European is likely to be young, well-educated or still studying, born in a country other than the country of residence, who uses foreign languages for professional reasons and is motivated to learn. Consequently, it seems that a large part of European society is not enjoying the advantages of multilingualism.
Free language lessons (26%), flexible language courses that suit one’s schedule (18%) and opportunities to learn languages in a country where it is spoken natively (17%) are considered to be the main incentives encouraging language learning. Group lessons with a teacher (20%), language lessons at school (18%), “one-to-one” lessons with a teacher and long or frequent visits to a country
where the language is spoken are considered to be the most suitable ways to learn languages.
Regional and minority Languages
According to the
Euromosaic study, a number of
regional or
minority languages are spoken within the EU that do not have official recognition at EU level. Some of them may have some official status within the member state and count many more speakers than some of the lesser-used official languages. The official languages of EU are in 'bold'. These include (data available for EU25):
★ Albanian (Greece as Arvanitika, Italy as Arbëresh)
★ Arabic (Cyprus as Cypriot Arabic)
★ Aragonese (Spain)
★ Armenian (Cyprus, Hungary, Poland)
★ Aromanian (Greece as Vlach)
★ Asturian (Spain)
★ Basque (France, Spain)
★ Berber (Spain)
★ Belarusian (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland)
★ Bosnian (Slovenia)
★ Breton (France)
★ 'Bulgarian' (Greece as Pomak, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia)
★ Catalan (France, Italy, Spain)
★ Cornish (United Kingdom) |
★ Corsican (France)
★ Croatian (Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia)
★ 'Czech' (Austria, Poland, Slovakia)
★ 'Danish' (Germany)
★ 'Dutch' (France as Flemish)
★ 'Finnish' (Estonia, Sweden)
★ Franco-Provençal (Italy)
★ Frisian (Germany, Netherlands)
★ Friulian (Italy)
★ Galician (Spain)
★ 'German' (Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia)
★ 'Greek' (Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary)
★ 'Hungarian' (Austria, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia)
★ 'Irish' (United Kingdom)
★ 'Italian' (Slovenia)
★ Ladin (Italy) |
★ Latgalian (Latvia)
★ Livonian (Latvia)
★ 'Latvian' (Estonia)
★ 'Lithuanian' (Estonia, Latvia, Poland)
★ Luxembourgish (Luxembourg)
★ Karaim (Lithuania, Poland)
★ Kashubian (Poland)
★ Macedonian
★ Mirandese (Portugal)
★ Occitan (France, Italy, Spain)
★ 'Polish' (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia)
★ 'Portuguese' (Spain)
★ Romani (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia)
★ 'Romanian' (Hungary)
★ Russian (Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) |
★ Rusyn (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia)
★ Sami (Finland, Sweden)
★ Sardinian (Italy)
★ Scottish Gaelic (United Kingdom)
★ Serbian (Hungary, Slovenia)
★ 'Slovak' (Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland)
★ 'Slovenian' (Austria, Italy)
★ Sorbian (Germany)
★ 'Swedish' (Estonia, Finland as Finland Swedish)
★ Tatar (Estonia, Lithuania, Poland)
★ Turkish (Greece)
★ Ukrainian (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia)
★ Welsh (United Kingdom)
★ Yiddish (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland) |
In this list,
constructed languages or what member states deem as mere "
dialects" of an official language of member states are not included. It should be noted that many of these alleged "dialects" are widely viewed by linguists as separate languages, however. These include Scots (the Germanic language descended from Anglo-Saxon, not the Celtic language known as Scots Gaelic) and several Romance languages spoken in Italy such as Veneto, Neapolitan, and Sicilian.
Russian
Though not an official language of the European Union,
Russian is widely spoken in some of the newer member states of the Union that were formerly in the
Eastern bloc. Russian is the native language of about 1.3 million Slavs residing in
Latvia,
Estonia, and
Lithuania, as well as a sizeable community in
Germany. Russian is also understood by many ethnic Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians, since it was a compulsory subject of many curricula in these countries during the
Soviet era. Although rarely a native language, Russian is widely understood by many in
Bulgaria,
Poland, the
Czech Republic,
Slovakia, some in
Hungary,
Romania and other countries. It is the 8th most spoken language in the EU. About 7% of all EU citizens speak or understand Russian to some extent.
Migrant languages
A wide variety of languages from other parts of the world are spoken by
immigrant communities in EU countries.
Turkish is spoken as a first language by an estimated 2% of the population in
Belgium and the western part of
Germany and by 1% in
The Netherlands. Other widely-used migrant languages include
Maghreb Arabic (mainly in
France and
Belgium),
Urdu,
Bengali and
Hindi spoken by immigrants from the
Indian sub-continent in the
United Kingdom, while
Balkan languages are spoken in many parts of the EU by migrants and
refugees who have left the region as a result of the
recent wars and unrest there.
Many immigrant communities in the EU have been in place for several generations now and their members
are
bilingual, at ease both in the local language and in that of their community.
[20]
Linguistic classification of the EU's official languages
The majority of the official languages of the European Union belong to the
Indo-European language family, the three dominant subfamilies being the
Germanic,
Romance and
Slavic languages. Germanic languages are widely spoken in central and northern areas of the EU and include Danish, Dutch, English, German, and Swedish. Romance languages are spoken in western and southern regions and include French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish. The Slavic languages are to be found in the eastern regions and include Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Slovenian. The
Baltic languages Latvian and Lithuanian, the
Celtic language Irish, and
Greek are also of Indo-European origin. Outside the Indo-European family, Estonian, Finnish, and
Hungarian are
Finno-Ugric languages while Maltese is the only
Semitic language with official status in the EU. All official EU languages are written with the
Latin alphabet, except Greek (written with the
Greek alphabet) and Bulgarian (written in the
Cyrillic alphabet).
Legal basis
The European Union ability for legislative acts and other initiatives on language policy is based legally in the provisions in the
Treaties of the European Union. In the EU,
language policy is the responsibility of member states and European Union does not have a "common language policy". Based on the "principle of
subsidiarity", European Union institutions play a supporting role in this field, promoting cooperation between the member states and promoting the European dimension in the member states language policies, particularly through the teaching and dissemination of the languages of the member states (Article 149.2).
[4][5] The rules governing the languages of the institutions of the Community shall, without prejudice to the provisions contained in the Statute of the Court of Justice, be determined by the Council, acting unanimously (Article 290). All languages, in which was originally drawn up or was translated due to enlargement, are legally equally authentic. Every citizen of the Union may write to any of the EU institutions or bodies in one of the these languages and have an answer in the same language (Article 314).
In the
Charter of Fundamental Rights, a legally non-binding text, the EU declares that it respects linguistic diversity (Article 22) and prohibits discrimination on grounds of language (Article 21). Respect for linguistic diversity is a fundamental value of the European Union, in the same way as respect for the person, openness towards other cultures, tolerance and acceptance of other people.
EU initiatives for language learning and linguistic diversity
Beginning with the ''
Lingua programme'' in
1990, the European Union invests more than €30 million a year (out of a €120 billion
EU budget) promoting language learning through the ''
Socrates'' and ''
Leonardo da Vinci'' programmes in: bursaries to enable language teachers to be trained abroad, placing foreign language assistants in schools, funding class exchanges to motivate pupils to learn languages, creating new language courses on CDs and the Internet and projects that raise awareness of the benefits of language learning.
Through strategic studies, the Commission promotes debate, innovation and the exchange of good practice. In addition, the mainstream actions of Community programmes which encourage mobility and transnational partnerships motivate participants to learn languages.
Youth exchanges,
town twinning projects and the
European Voluntary Service also promote multilingualism. Since 1997, the
Culture 2000 programme has financed the translation of around 2,000 literary works from and into European languages.
The new programmes proposed for implementation for the
financial perspective 2007-2013 (
Culture 2007,
Youth in Action and
Lifelong Learning) will continue and develop this kind of support.
In addition, the EU provides the main financial support to the
European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages (a non-governmental organisation which represents the interests of the over 40 million citizens who belong to a regional and minority language community), and for the
Mercator networks of universities active in research on lesser-used languages in Europe. Following a request from the European Parliament, the Commission in 2004 launched a feasibility study on the possible creation of a new
EU agency, "European Agency for Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity". The study concludes that there are unmet needs in this field, and proposes two options: creating an agency or setting up a European network of "Language Diversity Centres". The Commission believes that a network would be the most appropriate next step and, where possible, should build on existing structures; it will examine the possibility of financing it on a multi-annual basis through the proposed Lifelong Learning programme. Another interesting step would be to translate important public websites, such as the one of the European Central Bank, or Frontex web site also, in at least one other language than English.
Although not an EU treaty, some EU member states have ratified the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Its ratification is also a prerequisite for new member-states joining the Union.
To encourage language learning, the EU supported the
Council of Europe initiatives for
European Year of Languages 2001 and the annual celebration of
European Day of Languages on
September 26.
To encourage the member states to cooperate and to disseminate best practice the Commission has issued a Communication on
July 24,
2003, on
Promoting Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity: an Action Plan 2004 - 2006 (
summary) and a Communication on
November 22,
2005, on
A New Framework Strategy for Multilingualism (
summary).
From
November 22 2004, the
European Commissioner for Education and Culture portfolio included an explicit reference to languages and became
European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism with
Ján Figeľ at the post. From
January 1,
2007, the European Commission has a special portfolio on languages,
European Commissioner for Multilingualism. The post is currently held by
Leonard Orban.
EU devotes a specialised subsite of its "Europa" portal to languages, the
EUROPA Languages portal.
See also
★
European languages
★
European Commissioner for Multilingualism –
Leonard Orban
★
Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union (CDT) -
Inter-Active Terminology for Europe (IATE)
★
European Day of Languages –
26 September
★
Linguistic issues concerning the euro
★
List of names of the official languages of the European Union in the official languages respectively
References
1. Council Regulation (EC) No 1791/2006 of 20 November 2006, ''Official Journal L 363 of December 12, 2006''. Retrieved on February 2, 2007.
2. Europa:Languages and Europe. FAQ: Is every document generated by the EU translated into all the official languages?, ''Europa'' portal. Retrieved on February 6, 2007.
3. Europa:Languages and Europe. FAQ: What does the EU's policy of multilingualism cost?, ''Europa'' portal. Retrieved on February 6, 2007.
4. Consolidated version of the Treaty establishing the European Community, Articles 149 to 150, ''Official Journal C 321E of 29 December 2006''. Retrieved on February 1, 2007.
5. European Parliament Fact Sheets: 4.16.3. Language policy, ''European Parliament website''. Retrieved on February 3, 2007.
Further reading
★ Hogan-Brun, Gabrielle and Stefan Wolff. 2003. Minority Languages in Europe: Frameworks, Status, Prospects. Palgrave. ISBN 1403903964
★ Nic Craith, Máiréad. 2005. ''Europe and the Politics of Language: Citizens, Migrants and Outsiders''. Palgrave. ISBN 1403918333
★ Richard L. Creech, "Law and Language in the European Union: The Paradox of a Babel 'United in Diversity'" (Europa Law Publishing: Groningen, 2005) ISBN 90-76871-43-4
★ Shetter, William Z.,
EU Language Year 2001: Celebrating diversity but with a hangover, ''Language Miniature'' No 63.
★ Shetter, William Z.,
Harmony or Cacophony: The Global Language System, ''Language Miniature'' No 96.
External links
Official EU webpages
★
Europa: Languages and Europe - The European Union portal on languages
★
European Parliament Fact Sheets: 4.16.3. Language policy
★
European Commission > Education and Training > Policy Areas > Languages
★
EUROPA > The EU at a glance > The European countries > Languages in the EU - Hear examples of the official EU languages
★
European Commissioner for Multilingualism - Leonard Orban
★
European Commission Directorate-General for Education and Culture (DG EAC)
★
European Commission Directorate-General for Translation (DGT)
★
European Commission Directorate-General for Interpretation (former SCIC)
★
European Union Publications Office
★
European Union interinstitutional style guide
★
The process of creating documents in this multilingual environment (PDF)
News
★
EurActiv.com - Languages and Culture - news site
★
Eurolang news agency covering lesser-used languages in the EU.
Other
★
The European Federation of National Institutions for Language (EFNIL)
★
The European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages (EBLUL) - a EU funded NGO on lesser-used languages in the EU.
★
Mercator - networks of universities active in research on lesser-used languages in Europe
★
ADUM - information on minority languages EU programmes.
★
MinoLa - Minority Languages in the European Union
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