List of Multilingual Countries and Regions - Europe

Europe

See also: European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

• Andorra has one official language, Catalan. Other languages (mainly Spanish, Portuguese and French) are also spoken without official recognition.
• Austria has one official language, German. However it also has Croatian, Hungarian and Slovenian minorities, all of whose languages are protected under federal laws.
• Belgium has three official languages: Dutch (59%) in the North, French (31%) in the South and a small minority speaks German. Its bilingual capital, Brussels (10%), is mainly French with Dutch as minority. These languages have the status of 'official language' only in specified language areas as defined by the constitution. In Flanders, 59% and 53% of the Flemings know French or English respectively; in Wallonia, only 19% and 17% know Dutch or English. In each region, Belgium's third official language, German, is notably less known than Dutch, French or English. Wallonia recognises all of its vernacular dialect groups as regional languages, Flanders does not.
• Cyprus has 2 official languages: Greek & Turkish. Both languages were spoken throughout the island before 1974. After 1974, and the partition of the island, Turkish became the sole official language in the Turkish-Cypriot-controlled north whereas the - internationally recognized - Republic of Cyprus retains both languages as official. English is also widely spoken and understood throughout the island.
• In the Czech Republic, several municipalities of Zaolzie area have official bilingualism (Czech and Polish). Bilingual signs are permitted if a minority constitutes at least a 10% of the population of the municipality.
• Estonia has one official language, Estonian, but there is also a sizeable Russian-speaking community (around 30% in 2000) who speak Russian. Russian and other minority languages can theoretically be used in communication with local government and state institutions within the borders of certain constituencies where most permanent residents belong to a respective national minority (Article 51 of the Constitution). Many Estonians can speak Russian, but many Russians are not fluent in Estonian including those who are Estonian citizens, however fluency varies considerably between age groups.
• Finland has two "national languages", Finnish and Swedish, and the minority languages Sami (Northern Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt Sami), Romani and Finnish Sign Language are recognized by the constitution. Swedish is spoken by a minority, about 5.5% native speakers (Swedish-speaking Finns) concentrated along the coast and on the Åland Islands. Municipalities are bilingual if the Swedish or Finnish minority is at least 6–8%. Åland is monolingually Swedish by law. Sami is official language (besides Finnish) in the municipalities of northern Finland.
• France has a strict monolingual policy for the French Republic to conduct government business only in French. There are, however, levels of fluency in regional languages: Alsatian, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Flemish, Franco-Provençal, and Occitan (sometimes called Provençal). The entire population of France is reportedly French dominant in language.
• Germany has German as its official national language. Low Saxon (“Low German”) is recognized as a regional language in eight North German states. Lower Sorbian is an official minority language in Brandenburg, Upper Sorbian in Saxony, Sater Frisian in a part of Lower Saxony, and North Frisian varieties and Danish in Schleswig-Holstein. A language without its own territory, Romany (including the language of the Sinte people) is an official minority language as well. Germany is home to large numbers of people from other regions, and some of their languages, such as Turkish, Russian, and Polish, are widely used throughout the country. However, those languages are considered foreign and thus are given no official status.
• Gibraltar is a British overseas territory whose sole official language is English. Given Gibraltar's size, most of the population is also fluent in Spanish due to its vicinity with Spain. Gibraltarians also use Llanito as their local vernacular.
• Hungary, the official language is Hungarian. The country has small enclaves and pockets of Croat(ian), German, Romanian, Rusyn or Ruthenian, Serb(ian), Slovak, Slovene and Ukrainian speakers.
• Ireland, the first official language of Ireland is Irish with the second being English. English is the first language of the majority of the population.
• Italy. The official language overall is Italian, while bilingualism is applied in some territories. In the province of South Tyrol German is co-official. In the Aosta Valley region French is co-official, as is Slovene in some municipalities of the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia. Ladin municipalities of South Tyrol are trilingual (Italian, Ladin, and German). Italian law n. 482/1999 recognizes and protects several other languages, like Sardinian, Friulian, Occitan and other linguistic minorities.
• Kosovo has two official languages, Albanian, and Serbian. Other languages such are Turkish, Bosnian, and Roma hold official status on a regional level.
• Latvia has one official language, Latvian, but there is also a minority with Russian as their native language - 26,9% (2011). According to Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia - 39,6% of Russians, who live in Latvia, don't speak Latvian, but 25,8% of Latvians don't speak Russian.
• Lithuania has a small Polish speaking minority and a great amount of fluency in Russian.
• Luxembourg is a rare example of a truly trilingual society, in that it not only has three official languages, Luxembourgish, French and German, but has a trilingual education system. For the first four years, Luxembourgish is the medium of instruction, before giving way to German, which in turn gives way to French. (In addition, children learn English and sometimes another European language, usually Spanish or Italian.) Similarly in the country's parliament, debates are conducted in Luxembourgish, draft legislation is drafted in German, while the statute laws are in French.
• Malta has two official languages, Maltese and English. Italian is also spoken by a large percentage of the population.
• The Netherlands has two official languages, Dutch which is the primary language and Frisian which is recognized as a minority language and spoken by between 300,000 and 700,000 people. Frisian is mostly spoken in the province of Friesland (Fryslân) where it is the official first language, though a large majority of the population speaks Dutch most of the time. Low Saxon is recognized as a regional language in the northeastern provinces of the country, and Limburgish is an official regional language in Netherlands Limburg.
• Poland — 20 bilingual communes in Poland (mostly Polish-German) speak forms of the German language. Historic languages in the country like Prussian, Kashubian, Silesian and Yiddish of the Polish Jewish community has greatly declined to near extinction from the two World Wars.
• Portugal – although Portuguese is practically universal, the Mirandese language, a related Leonese language is spoken in Miranda do Douro, in northeastern Portugal, is officially recognized (see: Languages of Portugal), and there is some familiarity with the Spanish language in border towns with neighboring Spain.
• In Romania, the official language is Romanian but significant minority languages are recognized on the local level. The biggest ethnic minority is the Hungarian community of 1.4 million (6.6%).
• ex-Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact countries: many people fluently speak Russian, especially in Slavic countries within the area of the former USSR (typically in Belarus and Ukraine), along with Moldova, which has a Slavic minority. However, few Polish, Slovak or Czech people speak Russian, despite huge expenditures in the past.
  • Republics of Russia. The language of titular nation is also official in those republics (though usage of a titular language is often not widespread).
    • Chuvash, Bashkir and Mari residents of Tatarstan also speak three languages: their own Chuvash language, Russian and Tatar.
    • Among the Maris, widespread trilingualism has been reported (Mari-Russian-Tatar; Mari-Chuvash-Russian; Mari-Udmurt-Russian; even four languages used intermittently: Mari-Tatar-Udmurt-Russian in Mari-Turek areas)
    • In the 1980s, almost all the Karelians were bilingual, speaking both Karelian and Russian (being Karelian-Finnish bilingual in Finland). Trilingualism Karelian-Finnish-Russian also occurred in the Karelian ASSR.
  • Abkhazia. According to Georgian law, Georgian and Abkhazian are official languages; according to Abkhazian law — Abkhazian and Russian. The elder generation of Abkhazis spoke Georgian, Russian and Abkhazi.
• Slovakia has a Hungarian minority of 520,000 (9.7%). And some Polish and Rusyn/Ruthenian speakers.
• Slovenia. In the costal area (Koper, Izola and Piran) Italian is also an official language, in addition to Slovene. In the eastern part of Prekmurje, Hungarian is used as an official language next to Slovene. In the bilingual areas, all children are taught both languages.
• Spain, where several autonomous communities have their own official language, additional to Spanish (also known as Castilian), official all over Spain (see: languages of Spain):
  • Basque Country and Navarre: Basque, unrelated to any known world language.
  • Balearic Islands and Valencian Community: Catalan (officially called Valencian in Valencia).
  • Catalonia: Catalan and Aranese (Occitan).
  • Galicia: Galician.
  • There are a number of languages which have official recognition of some kind but which are not fully official:
    • Aragonese in Aragon.
    • Asturian in Asturias.
    • Leonese in Castile and León.
• Sweden, has Swedish as official language. Finnish, Meänkieli, Romani, Sami and Yiddish are recognized as minority languages. Meänkieli, a variant of Finnish, is spoken in Tornedalen and Haparanda in North Bothnia. Meänkieli, Finnish and Sami have a special status in the areas were speakers are significant minorities.
• Switzerland has four national languages; German, French, Italian and Romansh. The cantons Valais, Fribourg and Bern are bilingual (French and German), while canton Graubünden is trilingual (German, Romansh and Italian).
• In most countries of the Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are understood by all three groups (see Serbo-Croatian) - and smaller languages in the other republics of Slovenia (Slovenian), Macedonia (Macedonian) and (Montenegro) Montenegrin.
• In Carpathian Ruthenia, Ukraine, Slovaks living near Uzhgorod speak Ukrainian and Hungarian in addition to their mother tongue, Slovakian. In villages near Mukachevo Germans (Swabian dialect speakers) also speak Hungarian and Ukrainian.
• The United Kingdom has no official language de jure however the Home Nations vary:
  • Ulster Scots, a variety of Scots, is spoken by some in Northern Ireland, but again English is far more commonly used and Ulster Scots is less actively used in media. Irish and Ulster Scots now both have official status in Northern Ireland as part of the 1998 Belfast Agreement.
  • Scotland. 58,652 Gaelic speakers, mostly concentrated in the Highlands and the Hebrides, the traditional heartland of Gaelic culture. Also Scots with approximately 2 to 3 million speakers — a Germanic language closely related to English.
  • Wales with 611,000 Welsh speakers, including the majority of the population in parts of north and west Wales.
  • England, No official multi-lingualism, despite the presence of immigrant languages in urban centres and the Cornish language in Cornwall after two centuries of extinction was revived in the Cornwall region in the early 20th century.