Eurolinguistics is a comparatively young branch of linguistics which deals with questions on the languages of Europe. However, Europe is not defined in a unanimous way. There are three different definitions of Europe.
- political (languages of the European Union) (this definition is often used by authors dealing with language policy, e.g. Ahrens 2003, Kraus 2004)
- geographical (from the Atlantic to the Ural) (this seems the most current definition of Europe, e.g. in Haarmann 1975 and 1993, Görlach 2002, Heine/Kuteva 2006, Brendler/Brendler 2007)
- anthropological (languages of the nations characterized by a Greek and a Latin heritage (including the rules of law), the (West) Roman variant of Christian religion (and its developments during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation), the use of the Latin alphabet, the separation of spiritual and secular power, societal pluralism and individualism, a common history of the arts (in their broadest sense) as well as a common history of education and formation like the establishment of the universities) (this is the definition that is used, for instance, by Huntington and Schmidt ; Haarmann uses this definition to define the western part of Europe in its geographical sense)
Read more about Eurolinguistics: State of The Art, Research Results: Common Features of European Languages, Select Bibliography