According to Countryaah, Europe is bordered to the north by the Arctic Glacial Ocean, to the east with the Ural Mountains.
The majority of Europe’s people speak languages belonging to the Indo-European language family, which are represented by a number of different language branches. The eastern group of Indo-European languages, the satem group, includes Albanian, Slavic and Baltic; to the western, kentum group, belong Greek, Romanian, Celtic and Germanic.
The single languages spoken by most people in Europe are Russian and German.
Eastern Indo-European languages
Albanian has been considered a remnant of the ancient Illyrian language, which had a much wider prevalence in ancient times, but the origin of the language is uncertain.
Slavic is divided into East Slavic, West Slavic and South Slavic. Eastern Slavic is again divided into Greater Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian. Western Slavic includes Polish, Sorbian (in Lausitz, Germany), Czech and Slovak. In the early Middle Ages slavery was widespread all the way to Elbe and Saale in the west. The South Slavic languages are Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Macedonian and Bulgarian.
The Baltic language group includes Latvian and Lithuanian.
Western Indo-European languages
Greek language has historically been more prevalent than it has now. The Romanesque languages have largely retained the prevalence of Latin in the Roman Empire. It is Italian, rhetorical, French, Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese, and Romanian in the far east. Of the once large Celtic group, there are again only smaller areas of Breton, Welsh, Scottish-Gaelic and Irish.
The Germanic languages are often shared in West Germanic, with German, Dutch, Frisian and English, and Northern Germanic, with the Nordic languages Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic.
Other language families
The oral language family in Europe is represented by the Finnish-Ugric language group. It has a western branch with Sami, Finnish, Karelian and Estonian, and an eastern branch with Hungarian. In northeastern Russia, languages belonging to the Samoan language group in the oral language family are spoken.
Farthest southeast of Europe and Cyprus is spoken Turkish, which belongs to the Turkish language family. In Malta, Maltese is spoken, which is a Western Arabic dialect strongly influenced by Italian. Maltese is considered to be the Semitic language of the Afro-Asian language family. Another peculiar case is the Basque language in the west. It does not show kinship with any other language.
Linguistic minorities in Europe
As a general rule, the table does not include recent immigrant groups that until relatively recently have been regarded as “foreign workers” to a certain extent, nor are immigrants from other parts of the world. The main purpose of the table is to give an impression of how linguistically composed Europe is even when you disregard these, to some very large, groups. Most members of the various minority groups speak the national language of the country where they live in addition to their mother tongue, and in some groups the original mother tongue is being suppressed by the national language. The number of minority language users in each country is highly uncertain, due in part to diffuse definition criteria and insufficient data. This applies especially to rooms (romani), where different number tasks can vary greatly. By Russia is meant the European part of the country.
Country | Number | Language |
Greece | 63000 | Albanian |
Italy | 120000 | Albanian |
Serbia and Montenegro | 1800000 | Albanian |
Macedonia | 460000 | Albanian |
Bulgaria | 27000 | Armenian |
France | 70000 | Armenian |
Russia | 360000 | Armenian |
Ukraine | 54000 | Armenian |
Albania | 60000 | Aromunsk (Romanian) |
Greece | 50000 | aromunsk |
Russia | 280000 | Azerbaijani (Turkish) |
Russia | 530000 | avaric (caucasian) |
Russia | 85000 | Balkar (Turkish) |
Russia | 1000000 | Bashkirsk (Turkish) |
France | 580000 | Basque |
Spain | 620000 | Basque |
Serbia and Montenegro | 350000 | Bosnian |
Croatia | 50000 | Bosnian |
France | 1100000 | Breton |
Greece | 30000 | Bulgarian |
Serbia and Montenegro | 36000 | Bulgarian |
Moldova | 70000 | Bulgarian |
Romania | 15000 | Bulgarian |
Ukraine | 160000 | Bulgarian |
Germany | 35000 | Danish |
France | 1500000 | Alsatian (German) |
Finland | 300000 | Swedish |
Estonia | 17000 | Finnish |
Norway | 12000 | Finnish |
Sweden | 220000 | Finnish |
Italy | 30000 | French |
Netherlands | 650000 | Frisian |
Germany | 70000 | Frisian |
Moldova | 160000 | Gaelic (Turkish) |
Spain | 2600000 | Galician (Portuguese dialect) |
Russia | 100000 | Georgian (Caucasian) |
Albania | 62000 | Greek |
Ireland | 250000 | Gaelic |
Great Britain | 80000 | Gaelic |
Estonia | 25000 | Belarusian |
Latvia | 100000 | Belarusian |
Lithuania | 63000 | Belarusian |
Poland | 200000 | Belarusian |
Russia | 1200000 | Belarusian |
Ukraine | 450000 | Belarusian |
Russia | 220000 | Ingush |
France | 260000 | Italian |
Slovenia | 50000 | Italian |
Russia | 150000 | Kalmukkian (Mongolian) |
Russia | 150000 | Karachi (Turkish) |
Russia | 10000 | Karelian |
Finland | 40000 | Karelian |
France | 260000 | Catalan |
Spain | 6700000 | Catalan |
Russia | 300000 | comi (ugly) |
Ukraine | 250000 | Tatar (Turkish) |
Bosnia-Herzegovina | 540000 | Croatian |
Serbia and Montenegro | 117000 | Croatian |
Slovenia | 55000 | Croatian |
Hungary | 30000 | Croatian |
Austria | 175000 | Croatian |
Russia | 275000 | kumykkkisk (turkish) |
Italy | 600000 | Romansh |
Switzerland | 50000 | Romansh |
Russia | 240000 | lesbian (caucasian) |
Latvia | 30000 | Lithuanian |
Poland | 12000 | Lithuanian |
Albania | 5000 | Macedonian |
Bulgaria | 210000 | Macedonian |
Greece | 150000 | Macedonian |
Serbia and Montenegro | 50000 | Macedonian |
Russia | 530000 | mari (Finnish-Ugric) |
Russia | 120000 | moldovsk (romanian) |
Ukraine | 305000 | Moldovan |
Russia | 1200000 | murderous (Finnish-Ugric) |
Russia | 380000 | Ossetian (Iranian) |
Belarus | 400000 | Polish |
Latvia | 54000 | Polish |
Lithuania | 260000 | Polish |
Slovakia | 30000 | Polish |
Czech Republic | 62000 | Polish |
Germany | 280000 | Polish |
Ukraine | 200000 | Polish |
Albania | 60000 | Romany |
Bulgaria | 600000 | Romany |
France | 150000 | Romany |
Italy | 110000 | Romany |
Serbia and Montenegro | 170000 | Romany |
Greece | 40000 | Romany |
Macedonia | 60000 | Romany |
Poland | 40000 | Romany |
Romania | 2000000 | Romany |
Russia | 130000 | Romany |
Slovakia | 90000 | Romany |
Spain | 200000 | Romany |
Czech Republic | 150000 | Romany |
Germany | 40000 | Romany |
Hungary | 500000 | Romany |
Serbia and Montenegro | 50000 | Romanian |
Russia | 120000 | Romanian |
Ukraine | 340000 | Romanian |
Hungary | 100000 | Romanian |
Estonia | 420000 | russian |
Belarus | 3300000 | russian |
Latvia | 810000 | russian |
Lithuania | 310000 | russian |
Moldova | 600000 | russian |
Romania | 31000 | russian |
Ukraine | 12000000 | russian |
Finland | 18000 | russian |
Slovakia | 50000 | Ukrainian |
Finland | 2000 | Sami |
Norway | 30000 | Sami |
Russia | 2000 | Sami |
Sweden | 15000 | Sami |
Bosnia-Herzegovina | 1000000 | Serbian |
Croatia | 575000 | Serbian |
Slovenia | 47000 | Serbian |
Macedonia | 40000 | Serbian |
Romania | 40000 | Serbian |
Serbia and Montenegro | 70000 | Slovak |
Poland | 38000 | Slovak |
Czech Republic | 320000 | Slovak |
Hungary | 100000 | Slovak |
Italy | 120000 | Slovenian |
Austria | 30000 | Slovenian |
Germany | 60000 | Sorbian (Slavic) |
Italy | 300000 | German |
Russia | 5000000 | Tatar (Turkish) |
Ukraine | 90000 | Tatar (Turkish) |
Slovakia | 60000 | Czech |
Russia | 530000 | church caucasian (caucasian) |
Russia | 900000 | Chechen (Caucasian) |
Russia | 1500000 | Chuvash (Turkish) |
Bulgaria | 800000 | Turkish |
Romania | 40000 | Turkish |
Greece | 100000 | Turkish |
Macedonia | 80000 | Turkish |
Serbia and Montenegro | 120000 | Turkish |
Denmark | 27000 | German |
Belgium | 90000 | German |
Italy | 230000 | German |
Netherlands | 50000 | German |
Poland | 500000 | German |
Romania | 100000 | German |
Russia | 350000 | German |
Czech Republic | 50000 | German |
Hungary | 40000 | German |
Russia | 510000 | immortal (Finnish-Ugric) |
Belarus | 130000 | Ukrainian |
Russia | 4300000 | Ukrainian |
Moldova | 610000 | Ukrainian |
Romania | 65000 | Ukrainian |
Estonia | 40000 | Ukrainian |
Latvia | 78000 | Ukrainian |
Lithuania | 45000 | Ukrainian |
Poland | 230000 | Ukrainian |
Slovakia | 32000 | Ukrainian |
Serbia and Montenegro | 350000 | Hungarian |
Romania | 1600000 | Hungarian |
Ukraine | 160000 | Hungarian |
Czech Republic | 30000 | Hungarian |
Slovakia | 574000 | Hungarian |
Austria | 34000 | Hungarian |
Russia | 16000 | wasp (Finnish-Ugric) |
Great Britain | 580000 | Welsh |
Sources: AbbreviationFinder.org