Languages of the European Union
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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2 Additional language for treaty purposes 3 Demography 4 External link |
Official languages of the institutions
The official languages of the institutions of the European Union are
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- Estonian
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hungarian
- Italian
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Maltese
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Slovak
- Slovene
- Spanish
- Swedish
Additional language for treaty purposes
This limited status of the Irish language has provoked a great deal of debate in Ireland, as Irish is constitutionally the first language of that state.
The Spanish government plans to propose the inclusion of Catalan as another official language (with roughly the same status as Irish) in the future Constitution of Europe.
Demography
Official languages of the Union spoken as mother tongue and as foreign language:
| Language | Proportion of population of the EU speaking it as a mother tongue | Proportion of population of the EU speaking it NOT as a mother tongue | Total proportion speaking this language |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 24% | 8% | 32% |
| French | 16% | 12% | 28% |
| English | 16% | 31% | 47% |
| Italian | 16% | 2% | 18% |
| Spanish | 11% | 4% | 15% |
| Dutch | 6% | 1% | 7% |
| Greek | 3% | 0% | 3% |
| Portuguese | 3% | 0% | 3% |
| Swedish | 2% | 1% | 3% |
| Danish | 1% | 1% | 2% |
| Finnish | 1% | 0% | 1% |
External link