20 December 2021

Most spoken languages in Europe: do you know which ones?

by Gustavo

December 20, 2021

Most spoken languages in Europe: do you know which ones?

by Gustavo

Europe has a vast cultural variety, and this is exposed in its linguistic plurality, in the continent more than 150 languages are spoken. Among these, the European Union has classified 24 official languages, which are: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. Besides the languages considered official there are those that despite not being officially recognized are popularly spoken in Europe, so we list in this article the 7 most spoken languages in Europe in ascending order, explaining a little of each language and bringing statistical data to help in reading, they are:

Spanish
Italian

Turkish
English
French

German
Russian

Spanish

Did you know how important the Spanish language is? Spanish or Castilian is a romantic language that has its origins in spoken Latin, the “vulgar Latin”, which was used by part of the population living on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), which is why the language was seen as “ugly”. Currently it is the 4th most used language in the world by 543 million people, it is the official language of 21 countries, it is also the third most used language by internet users, in addition, it is one of the official languages of the United Nations (UN) and the European Union. In Europe, the language ranks 7th among the most spoken languages, however, only one European country speaks Spanish as a mother tongue, Spain.

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Italian

It is known as one of the most beautiful languages, do you know who we are talking about? In 6th place on our list of the most spoken languages in Europe we have Italian which is the official language of four countries in Europe, they are: Italy, San Marino, Switzerland and the Vatican. Remember that a country may have more than one official language, which is the case of the countries Albania, Croatia, Slovenia and Monaco that has Italian as co-official language of the country.

Italian is a Romance language of Latin origin, from a dialect spoken in Tuscany (central Italy), it is an important European language as it is one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe. With 69 million speakers throughout the European Union it is the third most spoken mother tongue, and counting the other continents it has 90 million speakers in total.

Turkish

To the surprise of many, Turkish is the 5th most spoken language in Europe, with about 70 million native speakers. Turkish is the mother tongue of Turkey and co- official of Cyprus, widely used in Macedonia, Greece and Serbia and also by a minority in 35 other countries, in summary the vast majority of these countries belonged to the Ottoman Empire. A curious fact about Turkish is that it has a large number of speakers in Germany, which exceeds 2 million people. The language has its origins in Central Asia in the region of Mongolia and Siberia and of course also had influence from the European continent, no wonder that Turkey is a transcontinental country.

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English

The global “darling” language is at the top of the most spoken languages in the world, spread across all continents for its political, economic, scientific, military, colonial and cultural importance, in many countries English is imposed as the second language to be studied.

Occupying the 1st place worldwide with 1.348 million speakers in total, it is one of the 6 official languages of the United Nations (UN) and the official language of

53 countries, but is it the same on the European continent? In Europe only 6

countries speak English as their first language: England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Malta. Besides these countries there are others that also use English, usually as a second official language, with approximately 70 million native speakers in Europe, thus occupying the 4th place in the European continent.

French

In 3rd place we find the French language, official language of France and co- official of Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg. French, considered the most romantic language of all, has 36 million native speakers in the world, 77.2 million native speakers and has a total of 280 to 300 million total speakers. It is a language with a great global reach, approximately 30 countries have French as an official or administrative language, and like Spanish and English, French is also one of the official languages adopted by the UN. French is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, as it was traditionally used as a language of diplomacy. Today, due to heavy immigration from other regions over time, the number of French speakers has declined.

German

In 2nd place is German, known as the language of philosophical currents and Western thought, it is the most widely spoken mother tongue on the European continent, with 18 % of EU citizens speaking German as their mother tongue. It is the official language of Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein, and co-official of Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The German language is the third/fourth most studied language worldwide, second only to English and French and tied with Spanish, because on the American continent the Spanish language is more studied, while on the Asian and European continents there are more people learning German, which makes it difficult to have clear data on the global “winner”.

Russian

In 1st place we have the Russian language, were you surprised? So are we. You probably thought that English was the most spoken language in the old continent, but it’s actually Russian. Russian is the official language of Russia and Belarus, it is also widely used in Eastern European countries.

Russian, despite not being an official language of the European Union, is one of the six official languages of the United Nations (UN), and is in the top 1 most spoken languages of the European continent, with 120 million speakers. This fact is due to the size in extension of Russia, with about 17.075.400 km 2it is the most extensive country of the surface of the globe and has more than 148 million inhabitants. Therefore, Russian is the most widely spoken language on the continent. Unfortunately the language is not easy for those who are familiar with Latin-based alphabet, as in Russian the Cyrillic alphabet is used, so if you wish to learn to speak Russian get ready for the challenge.

Which of the 6 most widely spoken languages in Europe to learn?

After learning about the linguistic variety of European languages and that the most widely used language is Russian, and knowing the advantages and disadvantages of each, you may be wondering “which language is the best option? Although Russian has a higher number of European speakers, the most suitable for those who wish to travel or use the new language for work is English or Spanish. English is widely used in the business world, it is the official language of many countries, it is the most spoken language in the world, with 1,132,366,680 speakers, and it is much easier to find places where there is an English-speaking translator. The Spanish language expands more every day, today it occupies the 4th place worldwide, with 534.335.730 speakers, it is the second language of international communication, second only to English. Both languages have an alphabet derived from Latin, which makes learning easier regardless of the choice. Now that you know the most spoken languages in Europe how about knowing the 5 most visited countries in Europe.

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