Linguae Europaeae

by Yinglun Sun Yinglun Sun is a doctoral student in Linguistics at the University of Illinois. She uses quantitative and corpus methods to uncover patterns in human language production, and is particularly interested in the interactional nature of language use. She wrote this blog post for 418 “Languages and Minorities in Europe” in Spring 2023. One of the fundamental values of the European Union (EU) is the observance and respect of linguistic diversity. This is reflected by regulations that define 24 official languages for the EU, and provisions for the right of EU citizens to write to any of the institutions or bodies of the EU in one of these official languages, and to receive an answer in the same language. In addition, the major institutions of the European Union – such as the European Parliament, the Court of Justice of the EU, the European Council, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank – all operate at some level of multilingualism in their written communicatio...

by Max Colon Max Colon is a junior in Psychology and Spanish at the University of Illinois. Max is interested in continuing his work with the non-profit organization Illini Fighting Hunger to provide food aid to those in need. He is planning on pursuing a career in Human Resources Management in the future. Max wrote this text as a student enrolled in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe.’ Image Source The home of 500 million people speaking well over 100 different languages, the European Union is a potent political-economic entity of 28 member states with a core mission to improve all aspects of life for its constituents. With its member countries ranging in size from very small to very large, the E.U. is a complex organization with many interests and challenges. In such a large organization, one would imagine that a single language would be used in an administrative capacity so as to promote efficiency and ease of governance. However, this idea actually runs counter to the...

Se gli Italiani possono farlo, perché non l'Unione? If the Italians could do it, why not the EU? by Orion Meyer | editor: Alessia Zulato (PhD Candidate in French) | L'Italia non è una nazione di una sola lingua, ma di tantissime lingue. Come mostrato dalle sequenti mappe, ci sono dialetti regionali, locali, etc. [1]   http://www.kidseurope.com/Newsletter/LanguagesofItaly.htm   Questa cosa potrebbe causare un numero di problemi senza limiti. Ma c'è una lingua franca per la nazione – L'Italiano. La lingua è parlata dalla gran maggioranza del popolo [2] perché senza una lingua comune, il governo e il paese non funziona. Ma con una lingua franca, tutti i cittadini  hanno l'opportunità e l'abilità di comunicare facilmente. Questa cosa è importan-tissima per una nazione con divisione dietro ogni angolo. Il parallelismo fra Italia e L'Unione Europea è questo – ci sono tantissime lingue dei cittadini, ma c'è anche un governo centrale. Oggi, ...