List of European Languages Spoken in the EU

List of European Languages Spoken in the EU The continent of Europe is made up of 45 different countries and covers an area of 3,930,000 square miles (10,180,000 sq km). As such, it is a highly diverse place with many different cuisines, cultures, and languages. The European Union (EU) alone has 27 different member states and there are 23 official languages spoken in it. Official Languages of the European Union To be an official language of the European Union, the language must be both an official and a working language within a member state. For example, French is the official language in France, which is a member state of the European Union, and thus it is also an official language of the EU. By contrast, there are many minority languages spoken by groups in countries throughout the EU. While these minority languages are important to those groups, they are not official and working languages of the governments of those countries; thus, they are not official languages of the EU. A List of the EUs Official Languages The following is a list of the 23 official languages of the EU arranged in alphabetical order: 1) Bulgarian2) Czech3) Danish4) Dutch5) English6) Estonian7) Finnish8) French9) German10) Greek11) Hungarian12) Irish13) Italian14) Latvian15) Lithuanian16) Maltese17) Polish18) Portuguese19) Romanian20) Slovak21) Slovene22) Spanish23) Swedish ReferencesEuropean Commission Multilingualism. (24 November 2010). European Commission - EU Languages and Language Policy.Wikipedia.org. (29 December 2010). Europe - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuropeWikipedia.org. (8 December 2010). Languages of Europe - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Europe