Demographics of Europe - Language

Language

Europe has 30-40 major languages depending on definition.

The European Union (EU), which currently excludes many European countries (i.e. Norway, Russia and Switzerland), recognises 23 official languages as of 2007. According to the same source, the eight most natively spoken languages in the EU are (percentage of total EU population):

  1. 19% German
  2. 13% French
  3. 12% English
  4. 11% Italian
  5. 9% Spanish
  6. 9% Polish
  7. 7% Romanian
  8. 5% Dutch

These figures change when foreign language skills are taken into account. The list below shows the top eight European languages ordered by total number of speakers in the EU:

  1. 49% English
  2. 35% German
  3. 26% French
  4. 16% Italian
  5. 15% Spanish
  6. 10% Polish
  7. 7% Russian
  8. 6% Dutch

This makes German the most frequently spoken native language and English the most frequently spoken non-native language overall in the European Union, with German the second-most common language overall.

Read more about this topic:  Demographics Of Europe

Famous quotes containing the word language:

    “We have tried so hard to adulterate our hearts, and have so greatly abused the microscope to study the hideous excrescences and shameful warts which cover them and which we take pleasure in magnifying, that it is impossible for us to speak the language of other men.”
    —Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)

    “The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
    —Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)