European Cultures and Languages
• The people of Europe are all considered
European though their national cultures are
all different
• Europe is a continent of diverse languages
• Often people from one country can
understand the language of people from
another country
Why?
• Many people of Europe are bilingual
• The languages of Europe belong to the
Indo- European Language Family
Indo-European Languages
3 Branches
• Germanic – German and English
English is spoken in more parts of the world than any other language
Spoken in northwest and central Europe
Uses the Roman Alphabet
• Romance – French and Italian
Based on Latin, the language of the ancient Romans
Spoken in the southern and western Europe
Uses the Roman Alphabet
• Slavic – Russian
Russian is an example of a Slavic Language
Uses the Cyrillic Alphabet
Spoken in central and eastern Europe
Roman Alphabet
Germanic and Romance Language
Cyrillic Alphabet
Slavic Language
European Languages
Why would having so many
languages be a problem?
• Difficult to live, work, and trade with
people who could not communicate
with each other
What are Europeans doing to help
solve the language problems?
• Europeans are trying to solve the problem by having school
children learn one or more languages beside their own
• The European Union has made 23 “official” languages so
people will be able to understand the laws and decisions
made by the government
• There are special laws to protect languages, too!
• Europeans want to keep alive the languages spoken only
by a few people and at the same time to build a united
Europe