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There are dozens of languages in Western Europe. These include some of the best known languages in the world: English, French, Spanish and German. However, there are also many that are hardly known at all outside of their immediate area. Nearly all of them derive from the same origin, Indo-European, but they have evolved over several millennia to become completely separate languages.
Celtic
This branch of Indo-European is now confined to the far west of Europe. The languages involved are Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh and Breton. There are a few people still able to speak or understand Cornish and Manx, but these are mostly academics and there are no areas where they are spoken on a daily basis. While the celtic languages have been in decline for centuries, there are signs of hope appearing. Ireland, Scotland and Wales all have television stations with a large celtic content, and there are plans for a Breton station as well. The total amount of daily speakers for each of these languages is quite small (less than 70,000 for each language, but they have achieved official status in some areas (most notably in Ireland, where Irish is the first official language).
Romance
The lesser known Romance languages include Catalan (spoken by about 6 million in Eastern Spain), Languedoc (spoken in Southern France) Ladin, Galician and Friulan. All of these come originally from Latin but they never achieved the prominence of French or Spanish. Catalan was discouraged by the Franco regime, but it is making excellent progress since the 1980’s. The other minority languages are not as strong.
Germanic
There are a number of germanic languages spoken by only a few thousand people, most notably Icelandic and Faroese. Other minority languages in this branch include Letzeburgish, which is often considered a dialect of German or Dutch, and is only spoken in Luxembourg. While Germanic languages generally enjoy official status (such as Swedish, Danish and Norwegian), there are only a few million speakers of these languages and most speakers are now bilingual (using either English or German as a second language).
Basque
Basque is a real mystery. It is not related to any of the other languages in Europe and it has been out of favour with the governments in both France and Spain for decades, yet it stubbornly refuses to disappear. More recently the Basques have gained some autonomy in Spain. This may provide the spur to develop the language and help it to survive and remain an enigma in an ever more homogenous Europe.
Recognition
The European Union recognises several major languages as official languages as the union, including English, French, Spanish Italian, Dutch and more recently Swedish and Finnish. It also gives some recognition to lesser known language, including Irish. However, when one of the Irish members of the European parliament began her maiden speech in Irish some years ago, she was interrupted and told to continue in one of the languages of the Union. There were no translators for Irish, and this interruption showed that Europe still has a problem coming to terms with its own heritage.
There is European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages since 1998. However, the states who sign this charter must themselves agree on the status of a language. This might mean, for example, that Spain might not recognise Galician as a language, preferring to call it a dialect. When is a language not a language? If the answer is “when it is not recognised by the authorities” then there is a linguistic dictatorship in force.
Linguistic minorities have a difficult time surviving in a world dominated by globalism and the spread of English in particular. Any move to protect the heritage and languages of these groups is welcome. It would be a terrible shame to lose them.
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