EUROPEAN DAY OF LANGUAGES

WHY DOES THE EUROPEAN DAY OF LANGUAGES MATTER

In this post we can read about the European Day of Languages and the four mayor languages spoken in the Europe. This four are French, German, Russian and Spanish. To know why is important study languages the author interview to the editors of the Forum for Modern Languages Studies. This is a journal that publishes articles on all aspects of literature, linguistic and culture, from the Middle Ages to the present days and reflect the essential pluralism of research in modern languages and to provide a forum for worldwide scholarly discussion. Bassically they say, Frech is the fifth most commonly spoken language worldwide and its culture has a great influence in the world; German in spoken by little groups of people all over the world and it has political and economical influence; Russian is the seventh most-spoken language in the world and is the most geographically widespread language in Eurasia, and its influence is cultural too as well as French; and finally Spanish is the fourth most commonly spoken language worldwide and is spoken by 350 million people around the world

ORIGINS AND AIMS

The first European Day of Languages took place on 26th september 2001. The idea to launch a "European Year of Languages" was born at the Council of Europe during a Project's Final Conference in April 1997 organised by the Language Policy Division. The proposal supported by representatives of member states, was examined and the European Commission was invited to join in.

The overall aim of the 2001 Campaign was to promote the rich linguistic and cultural heritage of Europe: to increase awareness of Europe's linguistic heritage and openness to different languages and cultures; to motivate European citizens to develop plurilingualism; to encourage and support lifelong language learning for personal development.