photo: European Commission
The European Day of Languages (EDL) is an annual initiative held every 26 September involving numerous language institutions, associations, universities and, in particular, schools. This day, which has been celebrated since 2001, is a unique opportunity to raise awareness of language learning and linguistic diversity.
Throughout Europe, 700 million Europeans are represented in the Council of Europe’s 46 member states and all are encouraged to discover more languages at any age, as part of or alongside their studies. This stems from the Council of Europe’s conviction that linguistic diversity is a tool for achieving greater intercultural understanding and a key element in the rich cultural heritage of our continent. Therefore, the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg, promotes plurilingualism in the whole of Europe.
Many Europeans may think that a monolingual way of life is the norm. But between a half and two-thirds of the world’s population is bilingual to some degree, and a significant number are plurilingual. Plurilingualism is much more the normal human condition than monolingualism.
Why a European Day of Languages?
There have never been more opportunities to work or study in a different European country – but lack of language competence prevents many people from taking advantage of them.
Globalisation and patterns of business ownership mean that citizens increasingly need foreign language skills to work effectively within their own countries. English alone is no longer enough.
Europe is rich in languages – there are over 200 European languages and many more spoken by citizens whose family origin is from other continents. This is an important resource to be recognised, used and cherished.
Language learning brings benefits to young and old – you are never too old to learn a language and to enjoy the opportunities it opens up. Even if you only know a few words of the language of the country that you visit (for example on holiday), this enables you to make new friends and contacts.
Learning other peoples’ languages is a way of helping us to understand each other better and overcome our cultural differences.
Who is the European Day of Languages For?
The Council of Europe is hoping that this Day will be celebrated both by authorities in its member states and potential partners at the following levels:
among policy-makers (specific measures or discussions on language policy issues, for instance)
among the general public (awareness-raising on the overall objectives of the Day, including the importance of lifelong language learning, starting at any age, in educational establishments, at work, etc);
in the voluntary sector (specific actions by and/or for NGOs, associations, companies, etc).
What are the objectives of this day?
Language skills are a necessity and a right for EVERYONE – that is one of the main messages of the European Day of Languages.
Therefore:
Europe’s rich linguistic diversity, which must be preserved and enhanced;
the need to diversify the range of languages people learn (to include less widely used languages), which results in plurilingualism;
the need for people to develop some degree of proficiency in two languages or more to be able to play their full part in democratic citizenship in Europe.
The ultimate goal is that, by 2025, all young Europeans should be able to speak at least two languages in addition to the language of schooling, bringing them from an early age to a multilingual approach to learning.
The Structure of Language
Language is an arbitrary system of sounds and symbols which is used for many purposes by a group of people, chiefly to communicate with each other, to express cultural identity, to convey social relationships and to provide a source of delight (for example, in literature). Languages differ from each other in their sounds, grammar, vocabulary, and patterns of discourse. But all languages are highly complex entities. Languages vary in the number of their vowel and consonant sounds, from less than a dozen to over a hundred. European languages tend to have inventories in the middle range – from around 25 such sounds (e.g. Spanish) to over 60 (e.g. Irish). Alphabets reflect these sounds with varying degrees of accuracy: some alphabets (e.g. Welsh) are very regular in the way they symbolise sounds; others (e.g. English) are very irregular. Within grammar, each language comprises several thousand points of word formation and sentence construction.
Each language has a huge vocabulary available to meet the needs of its users – in the case of European languages, where scientific and technical vocabulary is very large, this reaches several hundred thousand words and phrases. Individual speakers know and use only a fraction of a language’s total vocabulary. The words educated people use – their active vocabulary – can reach some 50,000 words; the words they know but do not use – their passive vocabulary – is somewhat larger.
European Day of Languages Contest
As the main activity, we will hold a sweepstakes through our social networks that consists of the following: with a simple Google form, you will be able to access a series of questions related to the linguistic diversity of Europe.
Among the people who get the highest percentage of questions right, three will be chosen by lottery, who will be awarded with European Day of Languages merchandising.
The contest is open to all adults residing in Spain. They must also be followers of the Instagram account (@cdealmeria) and mark “like” in the publication of this contest on Instagram.
Beginning of the contest: September 22, 2022 at 10:00 am.
Last day to participate: September 30, 2022 at 23:59 hours.
It’s already open! Click here: link to the contest.