The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. The Union has a total area of 4,233,255 km2 (1,634,469 sq mi) and an estimated total population of over 449 million. The EU has often been described as a sui generis political entity combining the characteristics of both a federation and a confederation.
The European Union (EU) has 24 official languages, of which three – English, French and German – were considered "procedural" languages but this notion was abandoned by the European Commission. In fact English and French are used in the day-to-day workings of the institutions of the EU. Institutions have the right to define the linguistic regime of their working but the Commission and a number of other institutions did not do this as indicated by several Court judgments
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called Bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue; but many read and write in one language. Being multilingual is advantageous for people wanting to participate in trade, globalization and cultural openness. Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages has become increasingly possible. People who speak several languages are also called polyglots.
European Union culture policies aim to address and promote the cultural dimension of European integration through relevant legislation and government funding. These policies support the development of cultural activity, education or research conducted by private companies, NGO's and individual initiatives based in the EU working in the fields of cinema and audiovisual, publishing, music and crafts.
In varietate concordia is the official motto of the European Union (EU), adopted in 2000. Its translations in the other 24 official languages of the EU have equal standing. It is inspired by its Latin-language version coined by the Italian Nobel prize winner Ernesto Teodoro Moneta: In varietate concordia or In varietate unitas, which is also used as a compromise. It is one of the newest symbols of the European Union, alongside the European flag and anthem but, unlike most, it is specific to the EU rather than originating from the Council of Europe.
Leonard Orban is a Romanian independent technocrat who served as the Commissioner for Multilingualism in the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union (EU). He was responsible for the EU language policy and was the first Romanian Commissioner and the first member of the Commission whose portfolio is exclusively multilingualism. His term of office began on 1 January 2007 and ended on 9 February 2010. With a background in engineering and economics, Orban has taken up various posts working for the accession of Romania to the European Union, most prominently as Deputy and later as Chief Negotiator for his country at the time of final negotiations with the European Union.
Armenia is located in the Caucasus region of south-eastern Europe. Armenian is the official language in Armenia and is spoken as a first language by the majority of its population. Armenian is a pluricentric language with two modern standardized forms: Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian. Armenia's constitution does not specify the linguistic standard. In practice, the Eastern Armenian language dominates government, business, and everyday life in Armenia.
Linguistic rights are the human and civil rights concerning the individual and collective right to choose the language or languages for communication in a private or public atmosphere. Other parameters for analyzing linguistic rights include the degree of territoriality, amount of positivity, orientation in terms of assimilation or maintenance, and overtness.
The STELLA project was originally supported and co-funded by the European Commission. The aim was to develop a new language learning methodology for online language learning suitable for European learners. The project's aim was also to deliver online language learning courses for less widely taught and used languages (LWTULs) within the European Union in order to meet the European Union's aim to "safeguard the linguistic diversity in Europe". The methodology was subsequently used in courses which further delivered languages considered to be of strategic importance to the EU and member states.
The languages of Turkey, apart from the official language Turkish, include the widespread Kurdish, and a number of less common minority languages. Four minority languages are officially recognized in the Republic of Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the Turkey-Bulgaria Friendship Treaty of 18 October 1925: Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Hebrew. In 2013, the Ankara 13th Circuit Administrative Court ruled that the minority provisions of the Lausanne Treaty should also apply to Assyrians in Turkey and the Syriac language.
Immigration to Europe has a long history, but increased substantially after World War II. Western European countries, especially, saw high growth in immigration post 1945, and many European nations today have sizeable immigrant populations, both of European and non-European origin. In contemporary globalization, migrations to Europe have accelerated in speed and scale. Over the last decades, there has been an increase in negative attitudes towards immigration, and many studies have emphasized marked differences in the strength of anti-immigrant attitudes among European countries.
CIFE - the Centre international de formation européenne is a not-for-profit European institution of higher education and research established in 1954. CIFE encompasses educational and research activities promoting European integration and governance, multilingualism and student mobility. CIFE educates European and international students as future Policy Officers in European institutions and international organisations, a professional title which is recognised by the French state.
The official languages of the United Nations are the six languages used in United Nations (UN) meetings and in which the UN writes all its official documents.
Practices in language education vary significantly by region. Firstly, the languages being learned differ; in the United States, Spanish is the most popular language to be learned, whereas the most popular languages to be learned in Australia are German, French, Italian and Mandarin Chinese. Also, teaching methods tend to differ by region. Language immersion is popular in some European countries, and not used very much in the United States.
The linguistic landscape refers to the "visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region". Linguistic landscape research has been described as being "somewhere at the junction of sociolinguistics, sociology, social psychology, geography, and media studies". It is a concept which originated in sociolinguistics and language policy as scholars studied how languages are visually displayed and hierarchised in multilingual societies, from large metropolitan centers to Amazonia. For example, linguistic landscape scholars have described how and why some public signs in Jerusalem are presented in Hebrew, English, and Arabic, or a combination thereof. It also looks at how communication in public space plays a crucial role in the organisation of society.
EUF - Campus Europae is a European network which aims at the promotion of high quality student mobility and contributing to educating a generation of European graduates with an innate understanding of Europe’s unity in diversity. The project is under the patronage of the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and its secretariat is in Oetrange.
Euro English, Euro-English, or European English, less commonly known as EU English, Continental English, and EU Speak, is a group of dialects of the English language and a form of International English as used in Europe based on common lexical and grammatical mistranslations influenced by the native languages of its non-native English-speaking population mostly built on the technical jargon of the European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). It is mostly used among EU staff, EFTA staff, expatriates and migrants from EU and EFTA countries, global nomads and young international travelers such as international students in the EU's Erasmus programme, as well as European diplomats with a lower proficiency in English inclusive of both Standard English and non-standard native speaker dialects of English.
Ioannis Ikonomou is a Greek translator who has been working for the European Commission in Brussels since 2002.
The Adelaide Language Festival is a language festival that celebrates linguistic diversity and encourages people to learn about the cognitive and cultural advantages of multilingualism. It consists of keynote presentations, musical performances, Welcome to Country by a local Aboriginal Australian, and intensive sessions in dozens of languages.
