Patxi Juaristi
Lecturer at the Political Science Department at the University of the Basque Country and member of the Technical Committee of the World Languages Report
“... linguistic diversity is a key element of our cultural heritage. Embracing diversity is a prerequisite for constructing a Europe in which all citizens enjoy an equal status. Furthermore, it is a fact: trying to neglect it by using arguments like costs or efficiency does not solve the problem. Nevertheless, if there is one taboo in the European Union, it is languages. Whenever linguistic diversity within the EU is mentioned, Europe’s regional and lesser-used languages seem to be forgotten or ignored. Apparently, it is considered a too sensitive issue since languages are thought as a fundamental part of national identity and national sovereignty”
News Content:
Markus Warasin Secretary General of EBLUL (2002)
DOSSIER nº 10 - Towards linguistic rights in the EU 2004. The promotion of linguistic diversity as part of the new constitutional treaty of the European Union
Languages of the EU
What is the number of languages spoken in the European Union? Due to the difficulties in deciding whether a variety of a language is definitely a language or a dialect, it is quite difficult to specify the exact number of languages. That is, depending on the criteria used to define what a language is, we can say there are more or less languages in the European Union.
While Grimes (2000) mentions seven different Germanic languages spoken in Germany, many other authors consider these “languages” just varieties of German. Therefore, should Luxembourgian, Alsatian, Mocheno, Francique, Walser, Zimbrian or Yiddish be considered dialects of German or are they different languages?
Luxembourgian, along with German and French, has recently become one of the official languages in Luxemburg, although not long ago it was considered a dialect or variety of German.
Some experts consider Yiddish a dialect of German. However, it has some kind of official status in Sweden, and in 1995 the Yiddish was defended through an agreement signed by the European Council. In addition, a similar question could be asked: Is the Tsakonian a dialect of Modern Greek or is it a separate language?
In this report, all the languages and dialects which have any kind of official status, such as, Luxembourgian or Yiddish, will be considered, ignoring those dialects without any kind of official status, such as Alsatian, Mocheno, Francique, Walser or Zimbrian.
According to different sources, due to the migrations taken place over recent decades, more than 125 languages are spoken nowadays in the European Union. (Siguan, 2003). In France, for example, Algerian Arabic is spoken by more than 600,000 speakers; Kabyle, a language of the Algerian Berber family, is spoken by more than 500,000 speakers; and the Tunisian Arabicis spoken by more than 200,000 speakers (Juaristi et al, 2005). In London, Panjabi has approximately 143,000 speakers,Gujarati around 138,000 speakers and Hindi/Urdu is spoken by 125,900 (Baker and Eversley, 2000). Languages such as these besides having no recognition and prestige, they receive little understanding or protection in the EU.
Regarding native languages, 63 languages can be counted in the EU:
1. Albanian (230,000)
2. Aragones (10,000)
3. Asturian (450,000)
4. Basque (750,000)
5. Belarusian (220,000)
6. Breton (369,000)
7. Bulgarian (400,000)
8. Catalan (7 million)
9. Croatian (140,000)
10. Corsican (200,000)
11. Czech (10 million)
12. Danish (5 million)
13. Dutch (21 million)
14. English (55 million)
15. Estonian (953,000)
16. Faroese (45,000)
17. Finish (4.7 million)
18. Franco-Provençal (60,000)
19. Frisian (10,000)
20. Friulian (600,000)
21. French (55 million)
22. Galician (2.3 million)
23. Greek (10.5 million)
24. Greenlandic (45,000)
25. German (84 million)
26. Hungarian (12 million)
27. Irish Gaelic (1.2 million)
28. Italian (55 million)
29. Kashubian (200,000)
30. Karelian (10,000)
31. Ladin (40,000)
32. Latvian (1.8 million)
33. Lithuanian (3.7 million)
34. Luxembourgian (442,000)
35. Macedonian (10,000)
36. Maltese (370,000)
37. Mirandese (10,000)
38. Occitan (1.5 million)
39. Polish (39 million)
40. Portuguese (10 million)
41. Romanian (80,000)
42. Romany (1.5 million)
43. Russian (1.3 million)
44. Rusyn (50,000)
45. Sámi (30,000)
46. Sardinian (1.5 million)
47. Scottish Gaelic (67,000)
48. Serbo-Croatian (140,000)
49. Slovak (5.5 million)
50. Slovenian (2 million)
51. Sorbian (30,000)
52. Spanish (43 million)
53. Swedish (8 million)
54. Turkish (340,000)
55. Ukrainian (250,000)
56. Võro (70,000)
57. Wallachian (200,000)
58. Welsh (500,000)
59. Yiddish
Four almost extincted languages should be added to this list:
60. Cornish (200)
61. Karaim (400)
62. Livonian (10)
63. Manx Gaelic (the last native speaker died in 1974)
Being 63 languages in the EU, it must be said that only 1% of all the world languages belong to this political and economic community, which makes it certain that the European Union does not have by far the richest linguistic wealth of the wealth.
Why is this so? The reasons are undoubtedly historical, economic, political and cultural. Nevertheless, at the heart of this situation most of the governments of the 25 member states of the EU have applied and are still applying efficient policies of discrimination, marginalisation and assimilation.(Juaristi et al., 2005).
