Talk:Languages of the European Union/Archive 1

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Contents

Tables needed

There should be tables for all the 20-some languages listing the English sorting order and the Union sorting order. -- Kaihsu 14:28, 2004 Mar 1 (UTC)

I removed the following section from the table: (38 % of all European citizens) Reasons: It certainly depends on the method in determining how many Europeans speak German. In order to be consistent, I think it is better to stick to one figure. Since the table refers to official numbers of the EU, I think it is better to stick to EU calculations. Gugganij 14:16, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Negotions with Romania and Bulgaria not finished yet

I removed the following sentence: Romanian and Bulgarian will become official languages of the EU from 1 January 2007. Reasons: Even if it is very likely that Romania and Bulgaria will join the EU, the negotiations are not finished yet. If those negotiations turn out to be successful (again: which is quite likely), the exact date of this enlargement is also not known yet. Gugganij 16:17, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

German speakers of French

I removed the following statement: Note also that the proportion that speak French as a foreign language is mostly constituted by the Germans.

Reason: According to [1], section Skills in EN, FR and DE 13 % of the German population speak French as a foreign language. A percentage which is lower than in 5 other EU15 member states (Luxemburg, Italy, Portugal, Belgium and Ireland). In the UK 11 % of the population speak French as a foreign language. Gugganij 14:03, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
OTOH: The population of Lux, I, P, B and Irl combined is smaller than that of Germany, therefore the original statement is actually true (but the wording is misleading because the word "proportion" refers to the individual countries, while "constituted" refers to the proportion of the individual speakers of french as a foreign language). IMHO it would be better to state the absolute number of speakers...
I just made a few calculations (using the percentages stated in the link mentioned above and the population figures in wikipedia): There are about 40 million people (EU15) speaking French as a foreign language. Germany: 10 Million, Italy: 10, UK: 6.6, NL: 2, B: 3.2, Spain: 2.8. Gugganij 21:36, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

data on EU languages

Any chance to replace the numbers of the EU15 with numbers of the EU25?

Sorry, but the European Commission does not yet have up-to-date data on the languages situation since the enlargement of 2004. --Holdspa 12:41, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've suggested removing this text because, so far as I know, no decision has yet been taken on these languages by the European Council

For example, as a result of Spain taking advantage of this paragraph, certified translations of the Constitution may be produced in the Catalan, Galician and Basque languages. --Holdspa 12:57, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

More recent data are already available ( http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_237.en.pdf ). It would be good if someone updated the article.

Cyprus has 3 official languages. Ok i am a greek cypriot and the cyprus law states that the official languages of cyrpus are greek and turkish. Can you clarify whether turkish has also become an official european language or any special arrangements were made ? thanks -- 213.207.176.152 18:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Republic of Cyprus goverment hasn't asked for Turkish to be recognised as an official language of the EU. But it has the right to do it. I have no information about any plans on it. See Languages_of_the_European_Union#Status_of_other_languages. --Michkalas 19:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Clarification: The right to ask for a language to be recognized is not in the final analysis the right of a country, but rather the right of a human being. A linguistic right is a human right. Whether the Republic of Cyprus has asked for the recognition of Turkish is not dispositive of the issue, as a Turkish-speaking citizen of the EU has the right to ask for it. The EU purports to be a union not only of the member states, but also of the "people" of the EU (a dual basis of sovereignty). [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]

Data on percentages of Speakers of languages in Belgium

The second table states that 44% of Belgians speak French as a language "other than their mother tongue", this is impossible because around 32% speak French as a first language, 60% Dutch and only 8% speak both bi-lingually, I believe the 44% refers to the total figure of French speakers in Belgium, it should simply state "n/a" as the figure should represent the number of speakers of French as a second language. Angryafghan 19:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe the figures just refer to a basic conversational knowledge of a language. (for example there's no way 70% of people in the Netherlands speak perfect German.) Since there are 60% Dutch speakers in Belgium, and since French is obligatory for all Dutch speakers at school, the number of 44% "other than mother tongue" French speakers seems quite plausible.--Lamadude 18:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Data on percentages of Speakers of languages in the United Kingdom

23% of the British population speak French and 9% speak German? This sounds much to high. Maybe "Parlez vous Anglais?", but not to a useable degree. TiffaF 16:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

You are maybe right, but we are just following the Eurobarometer survey. The question they ask is, though, quite specific to exclude spekers of the "Parlez vous Anglais?" type. The question is "Which languages do you speak well enough in order to be able to have a conversation?" Special Eurobarometer 243, see p. 152. --Michkalas 09:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

This problem is by no means limited to the UK or to French, it is in fact a fundamental problem of the Eurobarometer survey. The survey simply asked respondents about their linguistic abilities as they themselves chose to understand them. So one person may have understood the question as "do you speak any French?" and another might have understood it as "are you completely fluent and comfortable in French?" These are obviously quite different questions. The problem arises when people attempt to deduce from the study conclusions that are not warranted, namely that the fact that a given percentage claims some ability in a language as authority for the proposition that they should be expected to understand political and legal discourse in that language. [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]

Question

What happens if there is a discrepancy amang the translations? Is there a language that takes precedence in this casd?68.6.83.157 01:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems likely, but I don't know the standard procedure. 惑乱 分からん 21:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Answer: Discrepancies in translations are inevitable, and in fact a number of significant discrepancies have occured and led to litigation. The official position of the European Court of Justice, drawing on the treaty and regulation language that deems all language versions of documents to be "equally authentic," is that no version is superior to any other and that they all must be interpreted to say the same thing. In practice, the court does appear to favor certain versions (particularly versions in the major languages that judges are more likely to be familiar with). [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]

Is it a discrepancy to note that 7% of the UK speak English? I am almost certain that 100% do, and if not then it is undeniably in the 90s.

You haven't paying attention. The table you refering to clearly shows the percentage of those who speak a given language as second language! The table does not contain the number of native speakers. It just means 7 % percent in the UK speak English only as a second language, the rest as native one. --Lucius1976 19:27, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Could someone caption that table. I'm not sure how to do it myself. It needs to be pointed out that the figures represent those who speak English, French or German as a second (not foreign) language. It seemed very ambiguos to me when I first read it, and I was about to edit it to relfect the fact that nearly 100% of people in Ireland speak English until I read this page.

Done. Man vyi 08:34, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Working languages: Frenh doesnt only have international influene due to "historical" reason but more importantly for political reasons - just as German has more influence for economical reasons. Feb-2006

I'd say German has more of an influence for philological and anthropological reasons than economic. The influence is strongest in countries which have, at times, been at least partially within German speaking or German/Prussian populated realms. Also Geograpy is a significant factor with Germany having a considerable number of bordering states. --217.154.33.122 17:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Official language vs. Working language

I come here from [[Irish] language|Irish] where the claim Is that it will be an official working language in 2007. The problem is the inclusion of the word working. This article perhaps does not make clear enough the difference between the more numerous official languages and the few working languages. Could someone make this more explicit? Shenme 05:32, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Working languages in the EU

What? Since when are English, German and French the only working languages. Can you cite your sources, or is that what you dreamed last night? In the EU, all 20 langauges are official and working languages according to the "EEC Council's Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community " as ameded by the enlargement treaties. It is true that only English, French and German are used for some Internet content, but that is because there is no demand for other versions, or the deamnad is to low. But theoretically all official languages of the EU are also working languages. --Danutz

Sorry, but that's a fact. "Working languages" are those into which all internal documents are translated, whereas "official languages" are those into which all legal acts and similar things are translated. English, French and German are the only three working languages the EU currently has. —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 12:09, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

What? Can you cite a source saying that?

EEC Council: Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community :

"The official languages and the working languages of the institutions of the Community shall be Dutch, French, German and Italian. "

Now this regulation was amended by each enlargement treaty; As amended by the 1995 enlargement (forth enlargement):

"The official languages and the working languages of the institutions of the Union shall be Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish."

And so on. Why do you think English, French and German should be superior? The languages have the same statute within the Union. Of course one could mention that for some languages there is not the same request and interest as for other languages. This is an error and should be corrected. I know Wikipedians are sometimes bored and because of national pried begin to mess up things, but this I'm not willing to accept that. What is written there is more than personal research, is pure invention. --Danutz

The European Commission has declared those three languages as the languages into which all internal documents will be translated, whether you wish to accept it or not. —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 13:28, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, but I don't belive you. Please cite me a source. Is Wikipedia a reliable source, or a bunge of lousers that write here what they dream? (this is generaly speaking not personaly, I am myself a big contribuitor, especially in Romanian). Wikipedia requests sources for dubious afirmations, so please cite us a source. I'll put "perosnal research" tag until you provide a source. I'm not new to Wikipedia, I'm 3 year's old here so don't think you'll get rid of my very easy. :) --Danutz

I would not try to "get rid of you", so please don't attack me unnecessarily. Circumstantial evidence is this, which at least states that the European Union has at most four working languages; I'll try to find a source which explicitly lists English, French and German and discounts Russian. Give me a few minutes. —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 09:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
The Charta of the Fundemantal Rights of the European Union, available in those three languages... —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 09:05, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Hah, this is a direct source: [2] Search for "working languages"; it explicitly lists en, fr and de. Good enough for you? —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 09:06, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Are you stupid? Or maybe you think I am... I begin with the second source. [3]. I speak German, better than English for your information. Now, I searched for "englisch" in your text, and I got back 2 answers:

  1. Die Prioritätenliste der luxemburgischen Präsidentschaft finden Sie hier (leider nur in englisch oder französisch erhältlich). -- One can find here the priority list of the Luxembourgese presidency (avaliable olny in english and french)
  2. ausgezeichnete Englisch- und gute Französischkenntnisse - Kenntnisse in weiteren EU-Sprachen wären von Vorteil. -- advanced English knowledge and good French knowledge; Knowledge of other EU languages would be an advantage.

Where does it say that this languages are the only working languages? Of course they are working languages, as are the other languages of the EU.

About the first source I should not even discuss, but anyway... First, the book is released by an independent german publisher only in this three languages because there is no demand on the german market of the Charter in Romanian. But I can asure you it is available in any language of the EU, and even in Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish because it is part of the Draft Constitution. But the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union has no legal status yet until the European Constitution will be ratified: [4].

But for you to be sure, I provide you with the Romanian version of the Charter. See the Draft Constitution in Romanian, starting page 47 on the website of the European Convention.

So please give a reliable source (although I asure you there isn't any). But give a source, not other non-related websites. Otherwise I'll aspect that in a week that section will be removed. --Danutz

I know I'm uninvolved in this, and I don't want to become involved, but please remember to refrain from personal attacks. MiraLuka 21:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

You deliberately try to misunderstand me. Searching for "working languages" should lead you to find: "These forms are issued in the three working languages of the European Community (English, French and German) as well as Italian." —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 10:42, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

More sources:

  • [5]: "currently, only German, English and French have the working language status"
  • [6] "the usual working languages of the institutions of the European

Union (English, French and German)"
—Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 11:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there a distinction to be drawn between the "working langauges of the EU" and the "working languages of the Commission"? (See first hit here) For example, the press office apparently has only two working languages, French and English ("Press releases of the Commission are available in at least English and French (the working languages of the Commission's Press Room) the day of publication"[7]). What is the practice, for example, in the Parliament? Can't MEPs debate in the chamber in any of the official languages, with simultaneous translation? (ISTR that the practice in committees is somewhat different.) -- ALoan (Talk) 12:08, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

See the resolution. All languages of the EU are also working languages. French, German and English are working languages of the Comission. [8] In the Parliament all languages are allowed and there are interpreters for each cabin. Documents which a Member State or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a Member State sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply shall be drafted in the same language. Regulations and other documents of general application shall be drafted in the twenty official languages. The Official Journal of the European Union shall be published in the twenty official languages.

Legislation and documents of major public importance or interest are produced in all 20 official languages, but that accounts for a minority of the institutions' work. Other documents (e.g. communications with the national authorities, Decisions addressed to particular individuals or entities and correspondence) are translated only into the languages needed. For internal purposes the EU institutions are allowed by law to choose their own language arrangements. The European Commission, for example, conducts its internal business in three languages, English, French and German, and goes fully multilingual only for public information and communication purposes. The European Parliament, on the other hand, has Members who need working documents in their own languages, so its document flow is fully multilingual from the outset.

See also: [9].

So we should get rid of the "wokring languages" section, because it is missleading. --Danutz

Some answers: Name-calling is not productive. English, French, German are the de facto working languages of the EU, although this is not explicitly provided in any legal document. Regulation 1, which is mentioned above, provides in Article 6 that Community institutions may provide language rules in specific cases. Pursuant to this power, the various institutions have informally (or at least not openly) adopted a position that calls for English (and to lesser extents French and German) as langauges to be used for internal administrative purposes. This is well attested by many studies of EU documents (see e.g., Creech) [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]

2007

It says that Bulgarian and Romanian will become official languages of the EU on 2007-01-01. I seem to undetstand that it's not finally decided yet if Bulgaria and Romania will become members of the EU on 2007-01-01 or on 2008-01-01, although the latter probably is very unlikely. Will the languages of those countries still become official languages of the EU, even if the countries themselves don't join until 2008-01-01 (I guess not)?

Stefan2 08:43, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, and amended. Ian3055 12:54, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Arabic

Why isn't Arabic mentioned? According to this article, there are in France alone 4 million Arabic speakers. [10] Looks a language that is significant enough to be mentioned. Sijo Ripa 22:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

If Arabic was mentioned then Chinese would have to be included as would other minority languages like Urdu, and the endless list of languages spoken in Britain, also the obvious reason being that Arabic is not an official language in any EU state and is therefore irrelevant to this article, Thankyou. Angryafghan 19:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

This answer seems rather cavalier. The decision to ask about a particular language is a political decision. Any survey of the linguistic abilities of Europeans, if it is designed to advance scientific study and not simply to justify a pre-determined political conclusion, should certainly inquire about languages that are as significant in the contemporary European scene as Arabic, Chinese, Urdu, Turkish and others. [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]

Why so many languages?

I did not find a clear reason why the EU has so many official languages. I don't know how it's working out for the Europeans, but I believe that English, German, and French would be plenty. Or just English on that matter because that is what most people speak in the Union. Please explain the stands that certain countries are taking regarding this issue. Thank you, (209.7.171.66 19:52, 25 August 2006 (UTC))


Well that would be one of the stupidest ideas yet firstly becasue not everyone speaks English, French or German let alone just English. Is that not clear enough dumbo? It would also go blatanly against the motto 'united it diversity' diversity DIVERSITY DIVERSITY. are you just another ignorant american making yet more ignorant remarks furthering your country's stereotype?

Nightstallion do not remove my question. Answer it!

From http://europa.eu/languages/en/home: Each Member State, when it joins the Union, stipulates which language or languages it wants to have declared official languages of the EU. So the Union uses the languages chosen by its citizens’ own national governments, not a single language or a few languages chosen by itself and which many people in the Union might not understand. Man vyi 16:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Can you please give further information on the policies of different member countries regarding this issue. Has there been a clear move to cut down on the number of languages? How do certain countries feel about paying out so much for something that could be easily avoided by eliminating some smaller languages? Has there been a proposed amendment in the EU to change the status of official languages? Thank you for your answer Man vyi, it is greatly appriciated. (209.7.171.66 19:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC))
No, that's pretty much one of the underlying principles of the Union that is highly unlikely to change in the next two decades; the smaller states would never agree to cutting their languages withour major concessions on other issues in return. —Nightstallion (?) 05:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
So instead of coming to an agreement and save money, you just keep spending billions of euros on translation? If the people knew what else they could do with all that money, I bet they would figure out a better way to handle this issue. How about the proposement of the British politicial who wanted to change the languages of the EU? Why did his move get denied and for what reasons? I'm glad that you actually answered my question this time, instead of removing it. Good job, thanks (LonghornJohnny 15:45, 1 September 2006 (UTC))
It's a matter of equal rights for all the languages in the Union; unifying it to just three or even only one language would go strongly against the wishes of the smaller nations and would most certainly not be received well. —Nightstallion (?) 20:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

It is in fact a matter of equal rights of the citizens, who have the right to access the legislation applicable in their countries (Community law) in a language they understand. Also they have to right to address themselves to the European institutions in one of the official languages and be answered in that same language. (anonymous)

  • I think only languages with one million speakers should become official - number of speakers that is often used to classify a language as viable and useful. [Note from RLC: the number of human beings who enjoy a particular right is irrelevant to a question of its validity. It is not the case, for example, that followers of a religion with only a few thousand adherents are not entitled to religious liberty. 11 Apr. 2007] Are there any groups in the EP defending anything like this? English, German and French are not plenty, because these are not spoken by several Europeans nor are official languages on most of them.--Pedro 16:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

That would be stupid as take for example Malta - 250,000 speaker in the country and I's say a large minority (its a pretty good country bilingually) could not understand another language well enough to read an official document in it


Role of sovereignty and democratic theory: It must be borne in mind that each member state voluntarily joined the EU with an understanding of exactly what it was giving up and what it was not giving up. Among the things that it was not giving up was the general right to have its language used. Regulation No. 1, the general framework for language policy in the EU, requires unanimous consent for changes in the institutional language rules. Many people of course have aruged that one language (invariably English) or a handful (typically some combination of French, German, Spanish and Italian) become the exclusive official languages. The people who argue for this invariably speak one of these languages themselves. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of citizens of the EU do not know any of these languages particularly well. [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]

"Language skills of European citizens"

Τhere seems to be a mistake in the first table: it mentions Russian, not an official language of the EU. What is more, it mentions only 12 out of the 20 official languages of the EU, without explaining why.--Michkalas 13:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Quite right. It wasn't a survey about official languages. Therefore now fixed. Man vyi 16:16, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Further languages of the European Union

I would like to ask if the languages listed in this section are following some criterion, like which country has singed and ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and what languages the respective govermen recognises to fall under the Charter. For example, minority languages in Greece -which hasn's signed the Charter- like Aromanian, Arvanitika, Macedonian are not listed.

I would like also to suggest to list the languages, not just the list of "Languages of XX" (say, Languages of the United Kingdom) and next to them the countries where they are spoken. The list cannot be exhaustive. At the end, we can also propose to see the lists or categories "Languages of XX".

Finally, Katharevousa in Greece hasn't only ceased to be official but, in fact, has no speakers whatsoever, with the possible exception of Greek Orthodox Church, but even its bishops rearly speak it and they prefer to add some features from katharevousa to Demotiki and that's all. We should remove any mention to it. --Michkalas 18:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

P.S. For this purpose we can use also Euromosaic, a study sponsored by the European Commitee.--Michkalas 19:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to make this list based on the ECRML; we should also mention which languages would fall under the charter if the remaining states also signed it. —Nightstallion (?) 09:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
In fact, it is better to follow the Euromosaic study. That is because a lot of European countries haven't yet signed ECRML [11] and there is no way to say which languages would fall under the charter, because the ECRML specifies no criteria for such thing -it is up to the goverments to decide. Moreover, though EU supports it, it is not a EU document. Euromosaic convers all EU member states and it is a survey under the aegis of the Commission. I propose also to have two lists. First: the languages and in brackets the countries where it is spoken. Second: the countries with the languages which are spoken there. Instead of lists, we can have two tables. See the first list in the Greek Wikipedia: el:Γλώσσες της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης#Οι λιγότερο χρησιμοποιούμενες γλώσσες της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης. There are 59 languages if I have counted well.
Also, I propose the section "Provision in the proposed constitutional treaty" to be made a sub-section of "Status of other languages" and the section "Further languages of the European Union" to be renamed to "The lesser-used languages of the European Union". This way the first section ("Status of other languages") will be about the status of non-official languages and the second section ("The lesser-used languages of the European Union") will list these languages (both those discussed at the Status section and those not specifically mentioned).
Last but not least, do you believe that there are some other contributors that should be asked to get involved in this discussion? I have also left a messaga at User talk:Man vyi and User talk:Ian3055. --Michkalas 19:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Logo

Could someone show me where the image to the right is a logo of the European Year of Languages 2001? I cannot find this anywhere, and it seems silly that there are two logos. └ OzLawyer / talk ┐ 18:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

True, Chamaeleon is one "of the graphic designs (for example the chameleon and the "hello" bubbles) that were developed for the European Year of Languages also proved to be very popular with organizers of activities." [12] So only Image:European Year of Languages 2001 logo.jpg is an official logo. I was imprecise and I will fix it.--Michkalas 21:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Table entries not alphabetically ordered?

Country English
as a language
other than
mother tongue		 German
as a language
other than
mother tongue		 French
as a language
other than
mother tongue

I see in the table with the above headings that:

  • Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary & Spain

are NOT in alphabetical order. Is there a reason?

Can I just fix it? JohnI 14:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

They're in alphabetical order in official language, i.e.Österreich, Suomi etc. Man vyi 16:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply- that makes sense. As this is an English language Wikipedia, shouldn't they still be in English language order?
JohnI 19:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
The order is essentially that of the Eurobarometer source (as updated for new members). I can't see why an English language alpha sort shouldn't be adopted, myself. Man vyi 23:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree, change done! Thanks for your input. JohnI 00:54, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Official languages Vs Countries

There are 27 countries with 23 official languages.

My obvious question is:

  • What countries don't have an offical language named after their country?

Answer:

  • Austria speaks German
  • Belgium speaks Dutch/French/German
  • Cyprus speaks Greek, the Turkish part is not part of the EU yet
  • Luxembourg speaks French/German, though they do have a third official language (Luxembourgish) used within their country

Can this be mentioned somewhere in the article?

JohnI 15:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Clarifications needed:

A few points should be mentioned with respect to John's answer. First, Turkish is an official language of Cyprus, along with Greek (pursuant to the country's constitution). There is no part of Cyprus that hasn't been admitted yet; the entire island was admitted to the EU in 2004, although the EU has said that it will not enforce its law on the part currently under Turkish occupation. Second, several countries actually don't have any official languaes. English does not have official status in the United Kingdom (or in the United States for that matter). This is how a "national" language differs from an "official" one. [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]

2007 update

I have updated the table from the section Language skills of European Union citizens to account for the 2007 enlargement. The data was taken from the same source ( http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_en.pdf ), as it was already there. User:Kékrōps complained about the arbitrary downsizing of Greek from 3% to 2% and reverted the edits. Please note the the downsizing is due to the fact that the population of the EU has increased from 454.9 to 484.9 million, while the Greek population remained 11.2 million (according to a 2005 estimate). This means that its proportion in the EU has decreased to 2.3% which was rounded (as in all other cases) to 2%. Alexrap 18:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I skimmed through the rather large document and couldn't find the percentages you cite except for the biggest languages. Could you give me the page number? ·ΚέκρωΨ· 02:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi ·ΚέκρωΨ·. That document does not contain a table exactly like the one in this article. Therefore, I used the same data that was used for the compilation of the previous table (the one before my update). All that I used (and was used before as well) is on page 12 (percentages for the 5 most spoken languages) and on page 13 (percentages for the 3 most widely spoken foreign languages in all countries, including the 2 new members). My methodology was therefore the following:
* calculate the new proportion of the EU population speaking each language as a mother tongue (to account for the total increase in population from 454.9 to 484.9 million). In all cases the corresponding proportion decreased, as the 30 million new members had 2 new mother tongues.
* calculate the proportion of EU population speaking each language as a language other than mother tongue (this was done considering the information from page 13). I presume the same methodology was used even when the first table was compiled. It is not just a simple calculation, but it is pretty straightforward, as the languages that were already spoken in EU25 were also spoken in the 2 new members.
I admit that some of my calculations could be wrong, so anyone spotting a mistake is more than welcome to correct it. However, I think it is quite important for this article to contain data about the new EU27. Alexrap 12:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I have put the numbers there in the first place based on the Eurobarometer survey mentioned in the article. I have used only numbers given in the survey, because calculations are highly possible to be wrong as there are a lot of data and the exact numbers are not always available and, in the end, all these affect comparability. So calculating is not a good idea. So I believe the first table should stay as it was, before Alexrap's additions. In fact, I believe, for reasons of consistency with the rest of the section Bulgaria and Romania should be referred to as "candidate countries" (see [13]), because that was their status when the survey was conducted and because, otherwise, there would be inconsistences with the conclusions of the survey summarised in the rest of this section of the article. All the conlcusions mentioned have to do with EU25. So we can't change one part without this affecting all the others. We can add an more explicit note (maybe at the beginning of the section) stating that these two countries were at the time of the survey candidate countries and now full members. As soon as a new Eurobarometer survey appears, all the section will be rewritten.--Michkalas 13:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
The survey only gives numbers for 7 languages. All the rest that was included in the previous table (Dutch, Swedish, Czech, Greek, Portuguese, Hungarian, Slovak, Catalan) were already based calculations. I used the same simple calculations to include data from the 2 new members (data taken from the same Eurobarometer). I see nothing wrong with that, so in my opinion the new table should be kept. Unless we want to remove all the data based on calculations and keep just the 7 most used languages. However, if you think it is needed to specify that the 2 new members were candidate countries at the time of the survey, feel free to do so. Alexrap 14:06, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

No, the rest languages were not based on calculations. They were included in the survey, but not in the beginning, only in the last pages of the survey with the detailed tables.--Michkalas 15:11, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I presume you mean pages 151-154. Using data from there, the adding of the 2 new countries is an easy job (and corresponds to what I had already done). As I said, the numbers for mother tongues don't change, but their proportion changes by a factor of 0.938131574 (=454.9/484.9). The corresponding "other languages" numbers are also quite easy to calculate, since there are only 2 new countries and we have all the available data for them.
I think we have already spent to much time in explaining all this stuff. Wikipedia is not only a Copy+Paste Encyclopedia. It is open for people to contribute using their mind and the available sources. I have done some calculations myself. If someone does not trust their validity, is free to do his/her own and amend the figures correspondingly. All the needed data is available in pages 151-154 of that Eurobarometer. Honestly, I can't see your point. We have 2 new countries in the EU, we have all the data available to us, why should we wait for the Brussels bureaucracy in order to change our Wikipedia article? Alexrap 17:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, I have nothing against updating ahead of any official EU updates. That's why I have contributed -I think- a lot at Leonard Orban and European Commissioner for Multilingualism and I have also created Romanian European Commissioner. So far there is no official site for these issues (though Commission has announced there will be one for Orban).
But we should update what we can update. If we make the changes you propose, in fact every single number, every single percentage given in this section has to be changed.
The method of calculating the new numbers that you are proposing is not really reliable. This survey is a poll, not a census. So, even if we consider the population estimates you mention as the original basis of the survey, the population numbers are just a basis for determing how many should we ask from its country, the weight of the result in the total and so on. Also, a lot of roundings are involved in every single stage of the process. What is more, the detailed tables at the end of the survey do not give numbers in persons but in rates. But we need persons to calculate exactly. More roundings that is.
Other mistakes are also possible. Already, the pages 151-4 you have mentioned do not refer to speakers of a language as mother tongue but only as a foreign language.
I believe the newly acquired status of Bulgarian and Romanian is already highlighted in the article and we should not update what we can not update, an effort which would result in less reliable numbers than before.
If you like, we may add an even more explicit note, stating that the two new member states will affect importantly the balance of the speakers of a language as mother tongue as 23,430,000 native speakers of Romanian [14], 8,900,000 speakers of Bulgarian [15] and 2,100,000 of Hungarian [16] have become citizens of the EU, numbers from Mercator Network - legislation [17]. (It is also about 1 million of Romani speakers in Romania, but I do not have a good source). --Michkalas 10:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Michkalas, I am sorry but I don't quite agree. As you said, the survey was a poll already, so of course it already contains some sort of errors. I don't understand what you mean when you say that the population numbers are just a basis for determing how many should we ask from its country, the weight of the result in the total and so on. The poll was already conducted (at the same date) in the 2 new members (and they chose to survey similar numbers of people, i.e. about 1000). I am sure they did it in order to have data from the 2 candidate countries (at the time of the survey). So even the EU bureaucracy thought about the future new members, but you propose to ignore them in Wikipedia. I already said that we spend to much effort in explaining all this, rather than checking the calculation. I repeat, in my opinion we have in there all the data we need. Let's take 2 examples.

  • First, English (as the most spoken):
    • As a mother tongue: In EU25 (454.9 million) spoken by 13%. Virtually none from the 2 new members has it as a mother tongue, therefore its proportion in the new EU27 (484.9 million) will be 13*0.938131574=12.19, that gets rounded to 12%.
    • As a language other than mother tongue: In EU25 spoken by 38% (accounting for approx 172.862 million). In BG spoken by 23% (1.771 million) and in RO by 29% (6.467 million). Adding altogether we get 181.1 million, which in EU27 represents approx 37.4%. This should be rounded to 37% (I rounded it to 38% to account for the 0.19% that were lost in the rounding for mother tongue). It is true that we don't know if the 38% in EU25 was actually more close to 38.4% or to 37.5%. Anyway, either if we write 37% or 38% in the new table, and we make in this way an error, the error is only maximum 2%, which is insignificant (I'm sure is smaller than the confidence interval given by the initial survey).
  • Now let's try Portuguese:
    • As a mother tongue: In EU25 spoken by 2%. This means that in EU27 (as virtually none in BG and RO has Portuguese as a mother tongue) has a proportion of 1.88% (rounded to 2%).
    • As a language other than mother tongue: In EU25 0%, in BG 0%, in RO 0%. Which means than in EU27 is also 0%.

I agree that these are not exact calculations, but the ones from the survey table are not either (as being part of a poll and as already containing some rounding errors). I also agree that some of updated proportions (in the new table) could be a little bit wrong (as for example the 38% for English should probably be 37%), but the errors are really insignificant. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and I honestly believe that a reader of this article would benefit a lot more from knowing that 5% of the EU population speaks Romanian than not knowing anything about it.

Finally, about the Romani speakers from Romania: At the 2002 official census, 535,250 Romanian citizens declared themselves to be ethnic Romas. However only 241,617 speak Romani, which accounts for 0.000049828% in EU27. Not enough to make a change in our table, that mentions languages spoken by more than 2%. I hope this is the last explanation I have to give. Both of us spent a lot of time having this discussion, rather than probably checking the new numbers, or doing something else. Alexrap 12:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

My only concern regarding the revised figures is the risk of WP:OR. We should really only be citing actual figures published by official sources, rather than resorting to our own calculations. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 12:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

·ΚέκρωΨ·, if that is your only concern then I'm happy to assure you that in our discussion here, WP:OR is not the case. Citing from there: <<Original research (OR) is a term used in Wikipedia to refer to material that has not been published by a reliable source. It includes unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories, or any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position — or which, in the words of Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation.">> Well, in our case, all the figures have already been published by exactly the same source (and exactly at the same time) that published the figures for EU25. And by no means we advance a novel historical interpretation of those published figures, as we just present them. Alexrap 13:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I can not see why we should include less exact numbers, as you also admit, when we can have more exact numbers and just mention or, as I have proposed, underline that this is a February 2006, i.e. pre-2007 enlargement, source. This is absolutely OK with the best academic or encyclopedic standards.
I can not understand your claim that "even the EU bureaucracy thought about the future new members, but you propose to ignore them in Wikipedia". I thing I have done one thing or two both in this article and at the Leonard Orban, European Commissioner for Multilingualism and Romanian European Commissioner exactly to include them in the WIkipedia articles and, also, to highlight their presence as EU members.
I hope I have made quite clear that I have nothing against the new member states. Maybe it was unfortunate that ·ΚέκρωΨ· made a change and questioned only the number for the Greek language. But I would like to underline that I am studying linguistics and I am particularly interested in language policy and that I do not care more for the Greek language and its speakers rights than I care for any other European language or, in fact, any other language in the world and their speakers rights. (These do not mean that Kékrōps edit was necessarily biased· I am just clarifying where I stand). I only care to have a good encyclopedic article on the subject with the most accurate data as possible. That' s all.--Michkalas 15:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I hope you read everything I wrote above. The numbers are not necessarily less exact. But even if they are (in a few cases), the errors are by no mean larger than the confidence interval of the poll. So the final effect on the data is virtually zero. The discussion is simple: for English we had 38% (which probably means something between 36% and 40%, because the whole survey was a poll). After calculations for EU27, if we write now either 38% or 37%, it has the same effect on any reader of Wikipedia. But if we choose not to include the data from the 2 new members, it means that we deliberately hide those results (that are present into the poll). So if you care to have a good encyclopedic article, why would you rather be 100% sure that you don't have a representation of 7% of the EU population, than have a 2% chance that less than 1% of the EU population is misrepresented? Alexrap 19:22, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I have asked from some users who have contributed recently in this article (JohnI, Man vyi, Osgoodelawyer, Kaihsu) to comment on our discussion. Let' s wait for their opinion.--Michkalas 20:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Michkalas, thanks for doing that. It is always good to have more opinions. Alexrap 20:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting discussion. How to publish the info accurately, without under/overstating it by publishing too much/little rounding... One thought I had was, it would be good to have 2 significant digits for as much of the info as possible. The major languages have this because of their usage base, but the minor languages miss out once they fall below 10% (rounding to 1 digit). How about having 1 decimal place for anything below 10%, and to the nearest 0.5 or 1% for those above? Do you need to add up to 100% anywhere? Regards 202.63.40.179 20:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC) aka User:JohnI

I think there is an another small error in the table. I don't understand how there can be more people speaking italian as a mother tongue than french (13% vs 12%). France is slighty more populated than Italy and many Belgians and Swiss speak also French as a mother tongue... By making my own calculs I found 13.7% europeans speaking french as a mother tongue ((64M of french + 4M of belgians)/494M) and 11.9% europeans speaking italian (58M of italians/494M). So I don't know if the source is really reliable.

Language skills of European Union citizens - Disputed section

Users trying to update this section, after the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU, have produced factual inaccuracies and inconsistencies. The section was following the latest Eurobarometer survey, published before the 2007 enlargement. By including the two then candidate countries in the section of member states and by wrongly "calculating" table figures for a the new sum of population tried to "update" the survey on their own (see also above). Only the tables, not the text, were affected. This "update" is not possible, unless someone tries to recalculate the tables and numbers of the whole survey. For example, the percentage of the population speaking English is provided by the survey for the EU25. To give the correct number for EU27, one should go to the appropriate table in the survey and make new calculations for each country and also each language and so on for the other languages. The tables according to the survey are here. The original tables should be included followed by a clear note that data were published before the 2007 enlargement.--Michkalas 20:13, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Original data now included, tag removed. --Michkalas 15:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Michkalas, I'm extremely disappointed by what you just did, which is neither fair-play, nor in the Wiki spirit. After our long discussion on this talk page, nobody else thought that we should eliminate the data from the 2 new countries. I'm not going to repeat myself, but ignoring the data from the 2 new members (although included in the original survey) is not the right thing to do. I honestly cannot understand why you insist in doing this. And you even do it in an unprofessional manner as well. Can you please compare the data from the table you've just put, with the text below it (that says "German is, then, the most widely spoken mother tongue with 17% (18% in your table) of the speakers, while English is the most widely spoken language in the EU with 50% (51% in your table)"). Nice consistency! Please revert the table back, at least until other users express their own opinions on this matter. Alexrap 18:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Data from Romania are neither eliminated, nor ignored. I am just avoiding to declare myself a Eurobarometer statistician. Do you believe that in the article is not sufficiently highlighted that Romanian is now an official EU language and Romania is now an EU member state? Do you believe the most important thing in the article is to highlight how widely is Romanian spoken in the EU? Wait a little bit for the next Eurobarometer survey and Romanian will be officially included in the tables as the "7th most spoken language in the EU" with out messing everything else. I have corrected the inconsistencies you had mentioned. --Michkalas 18:50, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not going to repeat myself. In the non-updated form, the table ignores the data taken from BG and RO that are included in the survey. I still cannot understand why you decided on your own to restore the old table. It would have been a lot more fair-play to wait for more people to give their opinions, don't you agree? The simple fact that in EU25 3% of the people spoke Greek (whereas in EU27 only 2% do) is not a good enough reason for ignoring data included in that report. If you don't like the new table, try to improve it (read all the discussion above) or find another way to include the data from the 2 new members. But just don't ignore it! Also, this is a Wikipedia article, not your own. If we asked for more people to express an opinion, then we should wait before imposing our own version. Alexrap 18:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I understand that the initial change, made by Kekrops, gives some ground for suspicion. As to me, as you can see at Slavic language (Greece) and Talk:Slavic language (Greece), I am not exactly distinguished for my patriotism. I also do not have any problem with Romania being a EU member state as the article on Leonard Orban shows. Anyway, we can wait even more, but 20 days had already passed.--Michkalas 19:19, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Exactly, 20 days had already passed and the other users didn't seem to have anything against updating the table. So why did you decide to revert it? Alexrap 12:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Reality check: I understand that the Eurobarometer survey, conducted before the 2004 accessions, may be obsolete. Its existence is, however, a fact. It is used, rightly or wrongly, as the basis of policy discussions. It cannot simply be "updated" in any useful way, as the updating introduces new methodological processes and data concepts that distort the original. The result is an apple being discussed as if it were an orange. Perhaps a new study should be conducted, but I fail to see how dubious "updates" are helpful in any sense. [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]

I agree completely; to start fudging the data like this makes all of it meaningless. The new member countires should be mentioned in the text and the fact that the data is from a different source mentioned; but it really shouldn't be attached to the data in the 2nd table; especially when that table has a valid reference attached to it - this implies to the reader that all the data in that table is valid and from the same source. Also, someone has added a "mathematical mean" column; this column actually means absolutely nothing statistically and is just confusing. I think the column should be removed; with the table needing either a substantial re-edit or a revert.--DomUK 11:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Hey, sorry to keep on with this but I've noticed a few more issues with this section. Firstly in the second table where has that blue colouring/shading of the top 1 and bottom 2 come from in the table; I'm having difficulty fathoming what it's supposed to actually mean or tell people? Could someone explain what it's for or should it be removed? And another issue is the three maps running down the right side of the section, showing the proportions speaking English, French and German. It's a good idea, but the fact each image uses a different scale is confusing and at first glance it seems to imply french is by far the most commonly spoken language in the EU. The shading for "20-40%" in the French language map is dark blue (the third darkest blue on the scale) while on the english language map it is light green (the 5th darkest green shade on it's scale); if you used blue for both the French map would be overall darker implying it is a more widely spoken language. Having maps alongside each other showing the same information using different scales is confusing in my opinion and should be rectified; anyone else agree?--DomUK 11:19, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

"lesser-used language"

There is a problem defining what a "lesser-used language" is exactly. It is used loosely. According to a draft report for the European Parliament,[18] "lesser-used language" doesn't include official member state languages, but only regional, minority and non territorial (i.e. Romani and Yiddish) languages. On the other hand, European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages covers Irish too, an official member state language. Because Irish is now an official EU language and because of the vagueness of the term I am removing the heading "lesser-used languages" and I am replacing it with "Reg and minority languages". There will be a special subsection on Irish and Maltese [19] under the official languages section. --Michkalas 20:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Response: The terms used "lesser-used language," "minority language," etc. are delicately crafted political decisions and you should be mindful about what went into the choice behind any particular usage before you change it. You should not necessarily expect consistency in the usage of different political systems. The European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages, which is an independent body, does not use the same terminology as the European Union or the Council of Europe (which contains more members than the EU does). The term "minority" is a contentious political issue, as it is a legal term whose usage invokes protectable legal rights, and because some states, notbaly France, refuse to recognize any minorities within their territory (i.e. as far as the French government is concerned, all French citizens are French, and are not to be further distinguished as part of a minority group). [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]

Finnish flag to the Swedish language

Could someone please add the Finnish flag beside the Swedish in Languages of the European Union-template? Swedish is an official language of Finland and there are far more Swedish speakers in Finland than German speakers in Belgium. Aaker 13:41, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. Michkalas 18:13, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! Aaker 22:34, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

There are of course numerous problems with using flags when speaking of languages, and tensions are raised when a flag (which represents a political entity) is used in connection with a language (not a political entity) to suggest an equation of the two concepts. The table appears to list languages with the flags of the member states in which they have official or national status on the nation-wide level, except for Catalan, which is shown with the flag of Catalonia. I suggest that this should appear with the Spanish flag. Otherwise, the list is inconsistent in how it treats the relationship between member states, flags, and languages. But consistency is frequently a casualty in language identity politics. [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]

Listing the names of the EU institutions...

...in the official languages of the EU is absolutely redundant. Maybe there is a place for this kind of information in the article of its institution - if it is necessary to mention something like that somewhere. I will remove the list from this article if it is OK. --Michkalas 13:09, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

It might be pertinent if there was some point such as how the concepts of union and commission and council were represented in the various languages or some other linguistic point. Without that, it's simply information one could reasonably find from the interwikis of the institutions. Man vyi 12:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
shrugs Let's make it a separate article, then. List of the names of institutions of the European Union in its official languages or something like that; we shouldn't actually delete the information completely, though. —Nightstallion (?) 13:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Michkalas, but the list lacks some languages (Bulgarian) and has some mistakes... Gaúcho

I have added Greek and Bulgarian in the two tables. The second table lacks five more languages. I have not checked the rest for mistakes.
Not all of these bodies are really institutions in the specific EU sense (see Institutions of the European Union). In fact, some are institutions, others are agencies, other are covered in the non-technical term "bodies". So if we are to be accurate, we should name it List of the names of bodies of the European Union in its official languages. Anyway, I am not sure it is really useful to keep this kind of information somehow. IMO, if someone would like to know the Bulgarian or Greek equivalent for "Council of the European Union", s/he has just to follow the wikilink in the respective article. --Michkalas 20:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I have edited the article to point out that the concept of "institution" is actually highly relevant to a discussion of EU language issues. Despite frequent usage of terms such as "official EU languages," there really is no such thing. The "institutions" of the EU do have official languages, as set forth in Regulation No. 1, but this regulation does not apply to EU bodies and agencies that are not "institutions" (such as the Community's trademark office, as per the European Court of Justice's decision in the Kik case). [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]. This discussion is frequently hampered by several sets of problems. One of which is a failure to separate one's political agenda from the scientific process, and the second is a failure to notice legally significant distinctions (EU "institutions" versus other EU bodies, the EU versus the European Community, the EU versus other European organizations such as the Council of Europe, etc.). [RLC 11 Apr. 2007]

List of minority languages

This article isn't supposed to be a list of all languages spoken in each country, that would be impossible they're so many (Greek is spoken and has been spoken for centuries in most EU member states for example; the Greek community - paroikia - in Vienna for example came into existence hundreds of years ago). Couldn't we stick with those with some official recognition (e.g. Greek in Italy, Turkish in Greece, Hungarian in Romania, Basque in France, Danish in Germany etc). I also think that there should be a table with the languages organized by country; it would take up far less space and would be easier to read.--Domitius 16:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

In the scope of the article is to say which languages are spoken in the European Union today irrespectively of there legal status. So regional and/or minority languages as well as migrant languages and foreign language skills have to be included. There is a EU source for this, the Euromosaic study (though not yet available for Bulgaria and Romania). There are 61 languages mentioned in this study and they are all now included. Using the EU survey is also a good idea, because we are avoiding (or we are now having a good argument against) what was happenning until now: someone was adding a language because it was a language s/he supported (like Breton, Ulster Scots etc.) or removing a language s/he dislikes (like Catalan or Russian). --Michkalas 19:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't Irish be taken off this list, since it has become an "official" language of the EU? --Paploo 17:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

No. Though Irish is the first official language of Ireland, it is considered by the study a minority language (because of number of speakers). I don't think that being now an an official language of the EU affects this. --Michkalas 18:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

On language lists: As a general matter, it is unfortuante that people so cavalierly chose to add or delete languages from officially propogated lists based simply on their own political sentiments. Lists of languages from various bodies may or may not be defensible, complete, or sensible, but people should not alter these lists and pretend that their altered versions are the lists that have been officially put forth. It is certainly legitmate to discuss the list, but the list should remain as it officially exists, lest confusion prevail. [RLC 11 Apr. 2007].

"so called official" vs "official" languages

"The official languages and the working languages of the institutions of the Union shall be Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish." (Article 1 of EEC Council: Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community - Consolidated version 2007-10-01 ). So these are truly official languages. The term "official languages of the EU institutions" is also used interchangeably with the term "official languages of the EU". In a regulation on road transport in December 2006 it is stated "In Annex I(B), point 172 of Part IV(1) is replaced by the following: the same words in the other official languages of the Community, printed to form the background of the card the same words in the other official languages of the Community, printed to form the background of the card" [20]. Furthermore, the European Parliament in its fact sheets [21] (a non legal text) uses the terms interchangeably, not to mention other EU websites. So I believe there is no problem to use the term "official languages" without "so called".--Michkalas 12:53, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

//Michkalas, it may seem overly technical, but law and "official" matters are based on technicalities, and the fact is that there is no such thing as an "official language of the EU," even though some EU authorities may on occasion use this terminology. There is no legal document that claims to set forth "official languages" of the EU as such. This is not just my view, but rather comes from the European Court of Justice, the final arbiter on EU law, which ruled in the Kik case (No. C-361/01) that there is no such thing as an "official language of the EU." The Court indicated that there are official languages of EU "institutions" (under Regulation No. 1), but that this Regulation does not apply to the EU generally, but only to those bodies technically defined as "institutions," which does not include all EU bodies. Specifically, the court ruled that the Community's trademark office (OHIM) is not an institution and therefore not subject to Regulation No. 1. To write of "official languages of the EU" is therefore both factually and legally erroneous. Citations to errors made by EU authorities, which have been rejected by the ECJ, only perpetuate the inaccurate perception that there is such a thing as an official EU language. I recognize that the usage of "so-called" may be annoying and seem pedantic, but it is inaccurate to speak of "official EU languages," citations to erroneous statements (which you yourself recognzie are not legal texts) notwithstanding. To avoid use of the term "so-called" one should always speak of official institutional languages, not EU official languages generally. Moreover, your deletion of the discussion of the Kik case, which explained the singificance of the distinction for EU language policy, is rather curious. In any event, I have modified the article consistant with the above in a way that I hope provides an optimal balance between accuracy and readability. [RLC 18 Apr. 2007].
Well, the December 2006 regulation on road transport is a legal text. Anyway, I have added a sentence to underline that "Non-institutional EU bodies are not legally obliged to make language arrangement for all the 23 languages (Kik v. OHIM, Case No. C-361/01, 2003 ECJ I-8283)". BTW, it would be nice if you have a pdf version of this decision. If the court says explicitly "there are no official languages of the EU", though then you will have a point, but it would be contradictory e.g. with the above regulation I have mentioned (published after tis ECJ decision). In any case, I believe we should keep the "official languages of the EU" term and explain in the body of the article what this exactly implicates, as it is already being done (for the details of the case you can create a special article -there are many in Wikipedia for important court cases). The term "official language" in many country and international bodies articles does not refer to the strictly legal status of a language, because in many cases a language is de facto official language (no legal reference), in other cases there is provision that a language should be used in the education and the administration, without reference to the term "official" (the case of Greek in Greece), elsewhere there are just some administrative regulations, elsewhere there is a provision in the constitution or a law. But all these are official languages in the political, sociolinguistic and, in the end, encyclopedic context and the (legal, political, administrative, educational etc.) explanations follow.
P.S. Your book seems really interesting and a contribution to a topic generally neglected, at least for non-minority languages.--Michkalas 14:56, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Michkalas, I am not sure why you are so adamant about perpetuating the fiction that the EU, as such, has official languages. A regulation on road transport (which you should provide the OJ citation for) can not be viewed as a foundational text for EU linguistic policy, nor can any other mistaken pronouncement made by someone or some body not authorized to do so. There are indeed many instances when EU politicians and bodies claim that there are official languages, partly to avoid the complexity that accuracy entails, and partly to mislead, but the fact is there is no legal authority which establishes an official language policy for the EU as such. Ms. Kik, a Dutch woman, spent years claiming otherwise, but ultimately her cause was rejected by the European Court of Justice. Furthermore, your view of what makes an "official" language does not seem to take into account the definition that has been provided in ECJ jurisprudence. In 1989, Advocate General Cosmas defined an "official language" as a "language recognised as such by law," and contrasted it with a "national language," which is probably rather analagous to the concept of a "de facto official language." See the opinion in the Goerres case, Case C-385/96. There are indeed many countries without an official language, including the United States and the United Kingdom, who may be said to have "national languages" or "de facto official languages," but these are not the same as "official languages," and this is a distinction that is of legal significance. But I appreciate the comments about my book. [RLC 20 Apr. 2007].

Section: "Migratory languages", Sweden, and Yiddish

I find it difficult to reconcile the claim that "Migrant languages are not given formal status or recognition in the EU or in the EU countries and they are not covered by EU language-teaching programmes." with the statement in Yiddish Language, "[Yiddish is an] officially recognized minority language in Sweden". The slight technicality by which the two would not be seen as conflicting is if Yiddish were considered a native, and not a migratory language, but I doubt anyone wants to argue that. Does anyone see a clear solution? samwaltz 06:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Yiddish is considered a minority language in Sweden, as you have said, which means a "native" language. It is not considered a migrant language, as the Jewish community dates back to the late 18th century, according to Minority_languages_of_Sweden#Yiddish. It is of course obvious that it is a question as to when a language and a community is not considered anymore migrant and becomes a native language, a political and legal question. --Michkalas 09:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Partly outdated

All the tables in this article are based on calculations before Romania and Bulgaria entered the EU. To take just a few examples

- Romanian is one of the largest European languages, much larger than Swedish, Czech, Hungarian or Slovak, yet is missing from the table over the most spoken languages.
- The knowledge of English is lower in Romania and Bulgaria than in the EU average, so the percentage of people speaking English is a bit lower than stated.
- In contrast, the percentage of people speaking French is a bit higher, as more Romanians speak French than the average EU-citizen.

In short, having tables based on the EU25 is misleading and I would guess that quite a few Romanians and Bulgarians would also view it as a bit offensive. Is there any way to update the tables and the information in the article? Dusis 20:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

To my knowledge, there is no new Eurostat and Euromosaic survey on languages after the 2007 enlargement. I suppose we can agree we should not improvise. I can understand the feelings of the fellow Bulgarian, Romanian and Francophone Wikipedians, but the only thing I can say is: don't take it personally, it happens after every enlargement.--Michkalas 20:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
There was already a debate on these things some time ago between Michkalas and myself. As I pointed out at the time, the Eurostat survey already contains all the needed information to update the tables. Thus, not updating them is at least strange... Not many people expressed their opinion at the time and those who did, did not prefer the old version of the table. However, after some time (when the updated version was included in the article), Michkalas decided to put back the old version of the table (as a joke now, I would say that he behave like a "little dictator" at the time). At that point, as I had already spent to much time on that discussion and I was a bit dissapointed by Michkalas' (otherwise a valuable contributor to this article) attitude, I decided to leave things as they were. In the end, there are many other articles on Wikipedia that need improvements, so there is no point in wasting too much energy on small issues, especially when unreasonable stubborn attitudes are encountered. Alexrap 11:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

column "mean"

I do not understand what the column "mean" which user:16@r has added in the second table of the section "Language skills of European Union citizens" is supposed to show. Could 16@r or someone else, please, explain?--Michkalas 14:56, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I didn't add it. But mean or I presume arithmetic mean is a specific type of average. Commonly the arithmetic mean is just called the average but there are other types of averages like the mode, median, geometric mean ... Nil Einne (talk) 13:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge

List of names of the European Union in the official languages should be merged into this article. It's not that long of a list, and the information could easily be included in this article. As they are official languages, the name they give to the EU is extremely relavant to this article. Could be a table or something. Savidan 17:57, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Merge Yes, it would majorly improve this article, and i agree with what you mean about its being relavant. Scibah 16:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I've merged it now. Forgot to log in though. Scibah 16:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

GA Nomination failed

I have reviewed this article and compared it to the criteria as outlined in WP:WIAGA, and I have unfortunately had to fail the nomination. Here are the reasons why:

  • Criteria 1: The article EGREGIOUSLY violates the MOS. It is well below GA standard and is NOT easy to read or follow, and not well written. Here are some of the more obvious problems:
    • There is a missing close tag for "small text" that messes up the second half of the article.
    • The lead section (see WP:LEAD does not even come close to fully summarizing the article. If it merits a section in the article, it merits mention in the lead.
    • Organization is a mess. See WP:LAYOUT and indeed the entire Manual of Style WP:MOSThere is no flow to the article and no clear reason why certain sections are set aside as sections, or even why the article follows the organization it does. It reads like it has been cobbled together from many sources, and no attention has been given to creating a coherent article. The first section on official languages, for example, gives the impression (look at the Table of Contents) that Maltese and Irish are the official langauges. The entire article needs a complete rewrite to create a cohesive article and not just a random bunch of facts about the subject.
  • Criteria 2: Referencing
    • No consistent referencing style is used. The use of blind external links is deprecated in favor of a referencing style that clearly indicates the sources of the information, such as the use of a bibliography, and the use of a references section where full bibligraphic information for each source is listed. This article uses a mix of blind external links and inline cites. All references should be converted to one style, preferably either footnotes or parenthetical notes, so that full bibliographic information can be listed.
    • Additionally, several sections lack any clear reference whatsoever.

It is a shame this article is not in better shape. It seems to be a worthwhile topic, but this article needs some serious work before it will pass GA standard. I see that it is B-class; I wonder if it even meets that standard; it reads more as start-class to me. Good luck in fixing this article up. It needs a LOT of work. If you feel that this review was handled inappropriately, you may seek remediation at WP:GA/R. If you have any questions or seek further clarification, drop a note on my talk page --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:47, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Info

Hey, I've just removed this info from the EU page as part of a small rework. I am placing it here just in case it is missing from this page. Can someone familer with this article check?

The EU provides interpretation, translation and publication services in its official languages, but only legislation and important documents are produced in all 23 official languages. Other documents are translated only into the languages necessary for their use. For internal purposes the EU institutions make their own language arrangements. The European Commission, for example, conducts its internal business in English, French and German, and only use all languages for public information and communication purposes. The European Parliament, on the other hand, has members who need working documents in their own languages, so its document flow is fully multilingual from the outset.[1] In the EU, language policy is the responsibility of member states, but EU institutions, based on the principle of subsidiarity, promote the teaching and dissemination of the languages of the member states, through a number of programmes, most prominently Lifelong learning Programme 2007-2013.[2][3]

Thanks. - J Logan t: 15:46, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Eutranslationlogo.svg

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BetacommandBot 10:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Latin

Should mention that Latin has a limited use in official symbols or mottos, when there isn't space to write 20 different language translations. AnonMoos (talk) 12:09, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The language map is wrong! You cannot split Serbocroatian language into 2! It's ONE language!

Serbocroatian or Croatoserbian language is one language, with 2 main dialects (or 'writting standards')-western (croatian) and eastern (serbian), and nobody can make 2 languages of these 2 dialects. By analogy, it's same like making 2 languages from English language's 2 major dialects: british and american. There's tons of materials on Serbocroatian language as ONE language, spoken in Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Hercegovina. If you go by the 'logic' of making some 'new languages' of one language's dialects, then besides serbian and croatian, there should be also- montenegrin, bosnian and bunjevac languages on the map!!! Not to mention how the real map should look like if you consider all the languages that exist in Italy-(Friulian, Sicilian, Napulitan, etc.) and Spain ( Andalusian, Castillian, etc.)Wikipedia also has some very good scientific articles about this language, with quite a realistic points of view on this matter. Despite all (luckily now-sentenced to death) the obsessive-compulsive phanatic propaganda from the croatian nationalists about 'theirown' language, there's NO DIFFERENCE in all linguistic aspects between the serbian and croatian dialects of the SERBOCROATIAN language. It is and it will stay ONE, SAME language, with 2 or more dialects. The only thing that needs to be considered now and in the near future, when the West Balkan joins EU-is probably the name of this beautiful language, which because of the known political reasons, maybe needs to be changed to 'Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian', like it is done in the International Haag Tribune, or into 'South Slavic Group language' like it is in some on-line scientific forums and journals. Best Christmas Wishes and Cheers.24.86.110.10 (talk) 04:22, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Bosnians and Montenegrins would have us split Serbo-Croatian into four languages, not just two. I agree with you in principle that it's silly to pretend Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin are four different languages instead of one language with several different written standards, but we at Wikipedia don't have control over the situation. The EU and the countries involved all treat Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian at least as three different languages (Montenegrin is less clear-cut at this point), and all we can do is report on that. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 07:01, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I think that EU will treat all these 4 'languages' as one when the 4 countries join EU. Something that certainly shows this direction of development is the recent argument in an EU institutin involving a high EU authority, who openly advised Croatians, Serbians and Bosnians to find 'a name for their language, because EU can't waste money on translators for their 3 dialects of 1 language'. He pointed also that 'what's reasonable is reasonable, there will be one language for the Croats, Serbs and Bosnians (and now Montenegrians) in EU, with the appropriate number of translators allowed for 1 language'. Considering all this, I think the EU authorities are very, very reasonable and objective, and they do their job with a perfection. Cheers.24.86.110.10 (talk) 04:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)