At the initiative of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, the European Day of Languages has been celebrated every year since 2001 on 26th September. The general objectives of the European Day of Languages are: Alerting the public to the importance of language learning and diversifying the range of languages learnt in order to increase plurilingualism and intercultural understanding; Promoting the rich linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe, which must be preserved and fostered. Encouraging lifelong language learning in and out of school, whether for study purposes, for professional needs, for purposes of mobility or for pleasure and exchanges. Language Facts! Did you know that… There are between 6000 and 7000 languages in the world – spoken by 7 billion people divided into 189 independent states. There are about 225 indigenous languages in Europe – roughly 3% of the world’s total. Most of the world’s languages are spoken in Asia and Africa. At least half of the world’s population are bilingual or plurilingual, i.e. they speak two or more languages. In their daily lives Europeans increasingly come across foreign languages. There is a need to generate a greater interest in languages among European citizens. Many languages have 50,000 words or more, but individual speakers normally know and use only a fraction of the total vocabulary: in everyday conversation people use the same few hundred words. Languages are constantly in contact with each other and affect each other in many ways: English borrowed words and expressions from many other languages in the past, European languages are now borrowing many words from English. In its first year a baby utters a wide range of vocal sounds; at around one year the first understandable words are uttered; at around three years complex sentences are formed; at five years a child possesses several thousand words. The mother tongue is usually the language one knows best and uses most. But there can be “perfect bilinguals” who speak two languages equally well. Normally, however, bilinguals display no perfect balance between their two languages. Bilingualism brings with it many benefits: it makes the learning of additional languages easier, enhances the thinking process and fosters contacts with other people and their cultures. Bilingualism and plurilingualism entail economic advantages, too: jobs are more easily available to those who speak several languages, and multilingual companies have a better competitive edge than monolingual ones. Languages are related to each other like the members of a family. Most European languages belong to the large Indo-European family. Most European languages belong to three broad groups: Germanic, Romance and Slavic. The Germanic family of languages includes Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, German, Dutch, English and Yiddish, among others. The Romance languages include Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian, among others. The Slavic languages include Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and others. Most European languages use the Latin alphabet. Some Slavic languages use the Cyrillic alphabet. Greek, Armenian, Georgian and Yiddish have their own alphabet. Let’s learn our friends’ languages
