There are over 250 languages indigenous to Europe, and most belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. The three largest phyla of the Indo-European language family in Europe are Romance, Germanic, and Slavic; they have more than 200 million speakers each, and together account for close to 90% of Europeans.
Occitan, also known as lenga d'òc by its native speakers, sometimes also referred to as Provençal, is a Romance language spoken in Southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Valleys, as well as Spain's Val d'Aran in Catalonia; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania. It is also spoken in Calabria in a linguistic enclave of Cosenza area. Some include Catalan in Occitan, as the linguistic distance between this language and some Occitan dialects is similar to the distance between different Occitan dialects. Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century and still today remains its closest relative.
The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family.
Mirandese is an Asturleonese language or variety that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in eastern Tierra de Miranda. The Assembly of the Republic granted it official recognition alongside Portuguese for local matters with Law 7/99 of 29 January 1999. In 2001, Mirandese was officially recognised by the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages, which aims to promote the survival of the least spoken European languages.
The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages are a group of Romance languages that developed on the Iberian Peninsula, an area consisting primarily of Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Andorra and French Catalonia. They are today more commonly separated into West Iberian, East Iberian (Catalan/Valencian) and Mozarabic language groups. East Iberian's classification is a subject of ongoing scholarly debate, as some argue that the Occitano-Romance languages composed of Occitan along with the aforementioned two are better classified as Gallo-Romance languages.
French is the sole official language in France according to the second article of the French Constitution. French, a Gallo-Romance language, is spoken by nearly the entire population of France.
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. Today, 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 have not done so, as indicated by several judicial rulings.
A national language is a language that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. The term is applied quite differently in various contexts. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the territory of a country may be referred to informally or designated in legislation as national languages of the country. National languages are mentioned in over 150 world constitutions.
The Han Chinese people can be defined into subgroups based on linguistic, cultural, ethnic, genetic, and regional features. The terminology used in Mandarin to describe the groups is: "minxi", used in Mainland China or "zuqun", used in Taiwan. No Han subgroup is recognized as one of People's Republic of China's 56 official ethnic groups. In Taiwan, only three subgroups, Hakka, Hoklo, and Waishengren are recognized.
Italo-Western is, in some classifications, the largest branch of the Romance languages. It comprises two of the branches of Romance languages: Italo-Dalmatian and Western Romance. It excludes the Sardinian language and Eastern Romance.
The majority of languages of Spain belong to the Romance language family, of which Spanish is the only one with official status in the whole country. Others, including Catalan and Galician, enjoy official status in their respective autonomous regions, similar to Basque in the northeast of the country. A number of other languages and dialects belonging to the Romance continuum exist in Spain, such as Aragonese, Asturian, Fala and Aranese Occitan.
There have been many languages spoken in the Iberian Peninsula.
The languages of Portugal are Portuguese, Mirandese, Portuguese Sign Language, Leonese and Caló, with the inclusion of other linguistic entities like argots and transitional languages. Historically, Celtic and Lusitanian were spoken in what is now Portugal.
Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini Line. They include the Ibero-Romance and Gallo-Romance. Gallo-Italic may also be included. The subdivision is based mainly on the use of the "s" for pluralization, the weakening of some consonants and the pronunciation of "Soft C" as rather than as in Italian and Romanian.
Many countries, through the use of censuses, enumerate their populations by languages and by their level of competence in using those languages.
There is a variety of Vernacular languages spoken in Spain. Spanish, the official language in the entire country, is the predominant native language in almost all of the autonomous communities in Spain. Six of the seventeen autonomous communities in Spain have other co-official languages in addition to Spanish. Bilingualism in different degrees and in distinct communicative situations between Spanish and another language is a habitual practice for many of the Spanish people who reside in one of these autonomous communities.
The various regional and minority languages in Europe encompass four categories:
