20 official languages in Europe in 2004

[Ning]

English is becoming the most understood language in the EU but IMO, I think it would had been better to chose a neutral language (as "euro" currency is neutral). I mean a language that is not the native language of any european country. I'm thinking about Esperando of course (which is much more easier than english language). Telling english must become the native language of all the europeans would be like if instead of the euro, we would have the deutsch Mark for example. I understand than many people can considerate english language as being an US (or UK)domination.

EU languages situation reminds me what was France (and other european countries) 300 years ago : most of the french didn't speak french at all (it was only the language spoken in Paris area). They only spoke regionnal dialect languages : Provencal, Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Catalan, Basque, Flemish, etc. These languages are still used in many french families and you can still hear theses languages in the street. There are also newspaper in these languages.
It's more or less the same pattern in Germany and in other european countries.

[Tiverius]

The group is very big; there are such languages as English, German, Italian, French, Russian, Dutch, Hindi, Czech, Irish, Persian, Udmurt, Spanish, Swedish, Bangla, Greek, Georgian, Albanian etc. All these languages come from the same origin. In Europe we have Finno-Ugric languages (Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian and also Veps plus some small languages in Russia), Bask and Turkic languages (Turkish, Turkmenistani(?)). Then there are the original African languages, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, American...

I don't think that mine and the rest of the languages you mention come from the same root.This is a myth!There is nothing at all in common.All these greek words that all europeans use everyday are loans to your languages and most came to you via latin.Greek is a mother language.
My belief is that all languages should be used in everything.Did u knew that Catalan is the 7th most talked language in EU (over 10.000.000 speakers) but it's not official language?

[Aaron]

I don't think that mine and the rest of the languages you mention come from the same root.This is a myth!There is nothing at all in common.All these greek words that all europeans use everyday are loans to your languages and most came to you via latin.Greek is a mother language.

Words can change a lot during centuries whereas grammar doesn't. There are plenty of other language groups as well but almost all European and many Asian languages are related to each other.

[Tiverius]

Tell me the relation.I speak (apart from Greek) English,Spanish and Italian.There is no big similarity i can tell you.Different alphabet,different grammar,different pronounce of words (completely).

[Ernst]

I am not an expert, but there is a great language family that is called "indo-germanisch" in German. Not only almost all european languages belong to that but also, Afghan or some Indish languages. But that's a very general category, I believe...

[Aaron]

Tell me the relation.I speak (apart from Greek) English,Spanish and Italian.There is no big similarity i can tell you.Different alphabet,different grammar,different pronounce of words (completely).

Here you can find quite a good description: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/European_languages.

There is this list of languages:

1 Basque

2 Caucasian languages

3 Constructed languages

4 Etruscan

5 Finno-Ugric languages

6 Indo-European languages
6.1 Albanian
6.2 Armenian
6.3 Baltic languages
6.4 Celtic languages
6.4.1 Brythonic
6.4.2 Goidelic (Gaelic)
6.5 Germanic languages
6.5.1 North Germanic
6.5.2 West Germanic
6.5.3 East Germanic
6.6 Greek
6.7 Italic languages
6.7.1 Romance languages
6.7.1.1 Ibero-Romance languages
6.7.1.2 Gallo-Romance languages
6.7.1.3 Italo-Romance languages
6.7.1.4 Rhaeto-Romance languages
6.7.1.5 Daco-Romance languages
6.8 Indo-Iranian languages
6.8.1 Indo-Aryan languages
6.8.2 Iranian languages
6.9 Phrygo-Armenian languages
6.10 Slavic languages
6.10.1 West Slavic languages
6.10.2 East Slavic languages
6.10.3 South Slavic languages
6.11 Thracian languages

7 Others of note

These are the main language families of Europe. As you can see, the list of Indo-European languages is quite long. Such languages as Albanian, Armenian and Greek are the only languages under their sub-categories.

I understand it's difficult to see the mutual similarity between different Indo-European languages if you don't know any language outside of the group. There certainly are similarities in pronounciation and grammar. The alphabet certainly doesn't have anything to do with the relation as the Indo-European languages came to Europe for more than 10 000 years ago and was divided into different languages long before the current alphabets were used.

[N0W1K]

Here you can find quite a good description: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/European_languages.

Thanks Aaron, it's so interesting this url :):):)

[N0W1K]

Did u knew that Catalan is the 7th most talked language in EU (over 10.000.000 speakers) but it's not official language?

Ohhhhhhhhhh I didn't knew that Catalan it's the 7th most talked language...

Catalan and Spanish, both, are my mother tongue...

saludos!!!

[DrGreenTom]

Did u knew that Catalan is the 7th most talked language in EU (over 10.000.000 speakers) but it's not official language?

Ohhhhhhhhhh I didn't knew that Catalan it's the 7th most talked language...

Catalan and Spanish, both, are my mother tongue...

saludos!!!

is there much difference between the two languages, or can you easily understand each other ?

[N0W1K]

Did u knew that Catalan is the 7th most talked language in EU (over 10.000.000 speakers) but it's not official language?

Ohhhhhhhhhh I didn't knew that Catalan it's the 7th most talked language...

Catalan and Spanish, both, are my mother tongue...

saludos!!!

is there much difference between the two languages, or can you easily understand each other ?

Catalan it's quite similar french and romanesque (rumania), but for an spanish speaker if he can read it ,he can understand some words and some sentences. The grammar is similar to the french and spanish.

For me it wasn't difficult tu study catalan (I'm not catalan)

saludos!!!!

[Tiverius]

These are the main language families of Europe. As you can see, the list of Indo-European languages is quite long. Such languages as Albanian, Armenian and Greek are the only languages under their sub-categories.

I understand it's difficult to see the mutual similarity between different Indo-European languages if you don't know any language outside of the group. There certainly are similarities in pronounciation and grammar. The alphabet certainly doesn't have anything to do with the relation as the Indo-European languages came to Europe for more than 10 000 years ago and was divided into different languages long before the current alphabets were used.

Well,forgive me,but i can not accept that there was a time that we were talking the same language.There is no evidence.Nothing can prove it.We can only guess.And I am telling you again there is no similarity between greek and rest of european languages.We pronounce letters that u don't even thing they exists (So do albanians.They use a very deep c).
This indo-european language was constructed by scientists to put an order in languages.It's man made and mistakes can be accepted.There is no proof.How did this language heard alike?Where are their written sources?Our language have written sources at least 8000 b.C. into two different "alphabets",gramiki alpha,gramiki vita (looks like hyeroglyphics,not yet read) and the alphabet we use till today (plus three more letters than modern greek alphabet).
If we talked the same language once,I could understand even one single word in Albanian or in German.I don't!I can understand some German,cause i know some English and look alike.If i didn't speak English i couldn't understand both German or English.Same happens on the other way.Anyway,that means to me that Greek doesn't have the same roots with rest european language,or that i am stupid that i don't understand Albanian or Swedish.

Catalan and Spanish, both, are my mother tongue

It was really confusing to order something to eat in Barcelona last August.Almost noone speaking English and in every restaurant were asking me if I wanted Spanish or Catalan menu.This summer would be easier for me!I speak Spanish!

[Dakkus]

These are the main language families of Europe. As you can see, the list of Indo-European languages is quite long. Such languages as Albanian, Armenian and Greek are the only languages under their sub-categories.

I understand it's difficult to see the mutual similarity between different Indo-European languages if you don't know any language outside of the group. There certainly are similarities in pronounciation and grammar. The alphabet certainly doesn't have anything to do with the relation as the Indo-European languages came to Europe for more than 10 000 years ago and was divided into different languages long before the current alphabets were used.

Well,forgive me,but i can not accept that there was a time that we were talking the same language.There is no evidence.Nothing can prove it.We can only guess.And I am telling you again there is no similarity between greek and rest of european languages.We pronounce letters that u don't even thing they exists (So do albanians.They use a very deep c).
This indo-european language was constructed by scientists to put an order in languages.It's man made and mistakes can be accepted.There is no proof.How did this language heard alike?Where are their written sources?Our language have written sources at least 8000 b.C. into two different "alphabets",gramiki alpha,gramiki vita (looks like hyeroglyphics,not yet read) and the alphabet we use till today (plus three more letters than modern greek alphabet).
If we talked the same language once,I could understand even one single word in Albanian or in German.I don't!I can understand some German,cause i know some English and look alike.If i didn't speak English i couldn't understand both German or English.Same happens on the other way.Anyway,that means to me that Greek doesn't have the same roots with rest european language,or that i am stupid that i don't understand Albanian or Swedish.

Catalan and Spanish, both, are my mother tongue

It was really confusing to order something to eat in Barcelona last August.Almost noone speaking English and in every restaurant were asking me if I wanted Spanish or Catalan menu.This summer would be easier for me!I speak Spanish! :D

Well.. There surely are common stuff in the grammary.
Compare to chinese question form: "This tree spruce this tree not spruce?". The same in English: "Is this tree a spruce?"
I'm sure the Greek equivalent of this sounds far more like the English one than the Chinese one. Guess why?

Languages affect each other. They've all come from somewhere. Man was originally developed somewhere in Africa and came from there. Apparently they could already there and brought their skill with them.
_All_ languages have developed from the same original language. They've just changed a lot in the way.

A proof:
Think of the roots of the English language.
It was "founded" only 2000 years ago. That's not very long, if you compare it to for example the history of Greece..
While the Roman empire still existed (yes, that was only 2000 years ago), there was no such thing as English language. On the island they spoke Latin and some old Germanic language, Latin being the official one.
The whole language has developed in such a short time. How much in common can you see between ðe elder English and the English they speak nowadays?
If you want to see how fast languages evolve, check this out: http://www.heorot.dk/beo-ms-f41.html
That's the oldest still existing "English" text. It was written at around year 1000, so the text is no more than 1000 years old. Can you read it with your English skills?
Most probably you can't.
Now imagine how much a language can evolve in.. say.. 20000 years. Quite a lot, believe me.
But still, there are common roots with different languages. Languages don't just pop out of nowhere. They've all come from somewhere.
Your grandgrandgrandgrand........grandgrandchildren living 1500 years from now surely will speak a completely different language than you do now.
They live in a world where current languages live only in history books, if those languages happen to be actually remembered at all.
Only a bit over 1500 years ago Latin was completely alive and used extensively. Now you see it nowhere. The same can and most probably will happen to English.
Many languages have evolved from Latin. Such languages are French (developed from the so called Vulgare-Latin, which was originally a dialect the common people in Rome used), Italian and Spanish.
Now check this link: http://www.micro.utexas.edu/courses/lev ... uages.html
There's a map of world's languages. You can see the colors gradially changing there.

The generic differences between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric languages are significant. Far more significant than between two different indo-european languages. That's why Finnish is said to be hard to learn.
For you it would surely be easier learning English than Finnish.
It might be far harder for you to understand why we say "kauppaan" when we want to say "to shop", but we say "kaupasta", when we want to say "from shop". Or how we can have one word for "aivottominkaan" ("Not even the most non-brained one"). A Hungarian person wouldn't have that much problems with it because they use the same grammar.

And grammar is the important thing here. You said you should understand other indo-european languages very easily with you Greek vocabulary.
Well.. That's false. As I told above, languages evolve. But that's mostly about the vocabulary. The grammar changes far slower. If you read the Beowulf link again, you can see the grammar is rather similar to that of English of these times.
The words have changed, the grammar hasn't.
You must look at the grammatical roots, not the vocabularical ones. Languages can easily borrow words from other languages, but borrowing whole language structures is far harder.
I guess you use a preposition-based system also in Greek. Imagine that changing to a postposition-based one. Surely not a thing that would happen in one night. That means about this:
First you would say "When I was in a room I saw a cat in a box". Suddenly you'd find yourself saying: "When I was a room in I saw a cat a box in". That's the most easily visible difference between Finno-Ugric and Indo-European languages.
You use a system more related to the English/German/French one because your language separated from its root-language less time ago than Finnish did.

Why are there different language groups in Europe, then?
That's because the Finno-Ugric languages were developed in middle of Sibiria, from where it takes damn long for the tribes speaking those languages to walk to the EU.
Finnish is developed from the languages spoken by the people who travelled northeast from where the language groups separated (that was in Caucasia), while English and Greek are developed by the people who travelled westwards right away.
Because our languages were separated from each other for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, they evolved so much that they're now being said to be in different language groups.

Of course these groups are a bit artificial. But so are all other groups, too. Imagine the way we've divided living creatures into bacteria, animals, fungi and plants. All of these have originally evolved from the same creature, but later one started living by carbon dioxide while the other one used oxygen instead. And so on.

You can draw an evolution tree of languages just like you can draw an evolution tree of creatures.

[groentje]

Thanks for this posting. I could not find anything different from my course of linguistics.

No one has found a text in this old language, but you can find a lot of changes. An example: the genetive-extension by Homer (-oio), and the old Latin form (-osio) have a lot in common, don't you think? Or traces of the aorist in Latin, which is used more in Ancient Greek. Greek is special, but still a member of the Indo-European group (modern form for Indogermanic).

BTW, Tiverius, 8000 year BC is a bit soon, I believe. Homer didn't write his Illiad and Oddyssey than around -800, the oldest writings in Linear A and B date from around -2000 at max. The oldest writings are the Sumerian, and they are said to be 5000 to 5300 years old. So I think you typed a "0" to many.

[Guest]

Hey, you forgot to mention the Maltese language, it's an official european language now.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Maltese_language

[groentje]

Sorry. I know, but I forgot.