20 Things You Might Not Know About Europe's Languages PDF

The mother tongues spoken by most people in Europe are Russian, German, French,...

The mother tongues spoken by most people in Europe are Russian, German, French, English and Turkish, in that order. RU DE FR EN TR IT ES UK PL One of the main Serbian orthographic rules is “WRITE AS YOU SPEAK AND READ AS IT IS WRITTEN”. THE SILBO LANGUAGE More than half of Europe is BILINGUAL. This means that even proper names coming of La Gomera, Spain, is an ancient whistling into Serbian from another language are language and is still being taught in local transcribed according to their pronunciation: Languages have around for instance, New York is Njujork, and Gérard schools. 50,000 Depardieu is Žerar Depardje. words or more. MALTESE Typically, native speakers know 15,000 to 20,000 is the only European language in the Afro-Asiatic family (which includes Arabic, Hebrew, Berber, and Hausa). word families but individual speakers More than normally use only a few hundred. 200 FAKE LANGUAGES Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch sudty , it have been created for literature and cinema deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltters in There are about (such as Elvish in “Lord of the Rings” and a wrod are; the olny iprmoatnt fatcor is 225 INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES Klingon in “Star Trek”). taht the frist and lsat ltteres be at the rghit in Europe – roughly 3% of the world’s total. pclae. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the Recent medical studies αβγδε wrod as a wlohe. have shown that learning a second language MAY delay the onset of DEMENTIA by several years. EUSKARA, You may know much more Greek than you think! You are certainly familiar with alpha, the Basque language, is believed to be one beta, delta, gamma and perhaps π and P. of the oldest European languages. Its origins are unknown. In fact mathematics, astronomy, biology, INDO-GERMANIC LANGUAGES geography, technology, philosphy, not to derive from an ancient language that mention politics, democracy and many more existed 4000-5000 years ago. Most linguistic common terms in Europe’s languages all have ethnologists locate it with human cultures their origins in Greek! living somewhere in the area of the Caspian Sea. From there it spread to Europe and as far ř as India. Russian was the first language spoken in OUTER SPACE. According to UNESCO, at least LITHUANIAN is very similar to ancient Sanskrit and is the oldest spoken Indo- THE MOST DIFFICULT TO PRONOUNCE? The Czech letter ř is said to be one of the most difficult letters to pronounce in the 43% of the estimated 6000 languages spoken in world – except if you are Czech! European language. the world are ENDANGERED. The EUROPEAN CHARTER FOR REGIONAL OR MINORITY KINSHASA, LANGUAGES of the Council of the capital of the D. R. of Europe is the only treaty in the the Congo, is the world’s world which aims to protect and second largest French It is believed that about promote traditional regional and speaking city, after Paris, 70,000 YEARS AGO national minorities’ languages. and before Montreal and a change happened in the human brain Brussels. that allowed humans to suddenly develop complex language and thoughts about things that are not immediately visible. This led to the ability to develop ideas, plans, beliefs and bigger concepts and being able to express these with language. EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR MODERN LANGUAGES WWW.COE.INT/EDL f #COEEDL CENTRE EUROPEEN POUR LES LANGUES VIVANTES