Archive for September, 2009
European Culture and Language
September 3rd, 2009
Europe is home to a diverse range of countries, cultures, religions, governments, and languages. Spanning east to west from the Ural Mountains bordering Asia to the Atlantic Ocean, and spanning north to south from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, Europe’s 50 sovereign states encompass over 700 million inhabitants whose diversity of cultures is reflected clearly through its diversity of languages.
Rooted in the Proto-Indo-European languages spoken thousands of years ago are the Indo-European languages, accounting for the majority of spoken languages in Europe today. These include the Slavic languages – including Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, and Bulgarian – as well as the Germanic languages – including High German, Swedish, and Danish. Also included as Indo-European languages are the Romance languages – French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, etc. – as well as Greek, Armenian, and Baltic languages.
Historically, Europe has been characterised by six linguas francas, spoken cross-culturally and trans-continentally. These are Classical Greek, Koine Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, and English, the latter being the current international lingua franca. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages protects Europe’s linguistic diversity.
The European Union, a 500-million-strong secular, economic and political body with 27 member states, has a fairly tolerant linguistic attitude, represented by its rule that every official national language is accepted as an official EU language. While new immigrants in European countries are expected to adopt their host country’s native language, many find themselves maintaining their cultural identity through persistence in speaking their native tongue. With the changing face of Europe’s traditionally Christian population, speaking mainly Indo-European languages, to a growing Muslim population, speaking mainly Arabic languages, effects of this remain to be seen.