Linguae Europaeae

by Emily Swisher  Emily Swisher is a third-year doctoral student in French Studies at the University of Illinois. Emily hopes to become a professor of French and incorporate research from her subfields of Translation/Interpretation and European Union Studies into her professional work. She wrote this blog post in 418 'Language and Minorities in Europe' in Fall 2021. The Arabic language has an undeniably strong hold in France. It is currently the second-most spoken language in the country with approximately four million locutors, far surpassing the combined number of speakers of France’s 25+ regional languages. Historically opposed to education initiatives in any language aside from the recognized national standard, France is now starting to reevaluate its policies toward the instruction of minority languages, and Arabic in particular. With a growing population of Arabic speakers on the mainland, the impetus for change seems to follow the adage, if you can’t beat them, join...

by Ann Abbott Ann Abbott  is the Director of Undergraduate Studies and an Associate Professor of  Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese  as well as an  Affiliated Faculty of  Latin American and Caribbean Studies  at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Her work focuses on student learning outcomes in as well as critical analysis of foreign language community service learning, social entrepreneurship, social media and languages for specific purposes. This summer, the European Union Center was pleased to co-sponsor the 5th Summer Institute for the Languages of the Muslim World (June 10-August 3, 2013) in collaboration with  The Department of Linguistics at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in collaboration with the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies , Center for African Studies , CIBER , Center for Global Studies , and REEEC . The Foreign Languages Building at UIUC Image Source Spanish doesn't need to w...