Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: What is the most used language in Europe?
Europe has about 225 indigenous languages, mostly falling within three Indo-European language groups: the Romance languages, derived from the Latin of the Roman Empire; the Germanic languages, whose ancestor language came from southern Scandinavia; and the Slavic languages. Slavic languages are most spoken by the number of native speakers in Europe, they are spoken in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Romance languages are spoken primarily in south-western Europe as well as in Romania and Moldova, in Eastern Europe. Germanic languages are spoken in Northern Europe, the British Isles and some parts of Central Europe. Other Indo-European languages outside the three main groups include the Baltic group (that is, Latvian and Lithuanian), the Celtic group (that is, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton), Greek, Armenian, and Albanian.
Like other European languages, English contains many words derived from Arabic, often through other European languages, especially Spanish. Among them is every-day vocabulary like "sugar" ("sukkar"), "cotton" ("quṭn") or "magazine" (""). More recognizable are words like "algebra" ("al-jabr"), "alcohol" ("al-kuhūl"), "alchemy" ("al-kimiya"), "alkali", "cypher" and "zenith" (see list of English words of Arabic origin).
Writing was introduced by the Greeks and from there also brought to the Romans (6th century BC). There are five alphabets in regular use in the areas generally considered Europe. The Latin alphabet was developed into several scripts. In the early years of Europe, the Carolingian minuscules were the most important variety of the Latin script. From this two branches developed, the Gothic/Fracture/German tradition, which Germans used well into the 20th century, and the Italian/Italic/Antiqua/Latin tradition, still used. For some nations the integration into Europe meant giving up older scripts, e.g. the Germanic gave up the runes (Futhark) (3rd to 17th centuries), the Irish the Ogham script (4th to 7th centuries). The Cyrillic script is the second most widespread alphabet in Europe, and was developed in the 9th century under the influence of the Greek, Latin and Glagolitic alphabets. Both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets are used for multiple languages in multiple states, both inside and outside Europe. As well as these two, there are three alphabets used primarily for a single language, although they are occasionally applied to minority languages in the states from which they originate. The oldest of these alphabets is the Greek alphabet, which could be considered the progenitor of all the surviving alphabets of Europe, with the earliest recorded inscriptions appearing in the 9th century BC. The other two are both found in the Caucasus, both originating in the 5th century. The Georgian alphabet is used primarily to write Georgian, though it is also used to write the other Kartvelian languages, Svan, Mingrelian and Laz, all of which are found largely within the borders of Georgia. The Armenian alphabet is used to write the Armenian language, which has two dialects, and has been used to write Turkish in the past.
Around the world, German has approximately 100 million native speakers and also about 80 million non-native speakers. German is the main language of about 90 million people (18%) in the EU. 67% of German citizens claim to be able to communicate in at least one foreign language, 27% in at least two languages other than their first.
A 2011 survey revealed that 78% of Croatians claim knowledge of at least one foreign language. According to a survey ordered by the European Commission in 2005, 49% of Croatians speak English as the second language, 34% speak German, 14% speak Italian, and 10% speak French. Russian is spoken by 4% each, and 2% of Croatians speak Spanish. However, there are large municipalities that have minority languages that include substantial populations that speak these languages. An odd-majority of Slovenes (59%) have a certain level of knowledge of Croatian. The country is a part of various language-based international associations most notably the European Union Language Association.
British and African Romance—the forms of Vulgar Latin used in southeastern Britain and the Roman province of Africa, where it had been spoken by much of the urban population—disappeared in the Middle Ages (as did Pannonian Romance in what is now Hungary, and Moselle Romance in Germany). But the Germanic tribes that had penetrated Roman Italy, Gaul, and Hispania eventually adopted Latin/Romance and the remnants of the culture of ancient Rome alongside existing inhabitants of those regions, and so Latin remained the dominant language there. In part due to regional dialects of the Latin language and local environments, several languages evolved from it.
The official language of Egypt is Modern Standard Arabic.
Dutch is a West Germanic language spoken by around 23 million people as a first language and 5 million people as a second language, constituting the majority of people in the Netherlands (where it is the sole official language) and Belgium (as one of three official languages). It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives English and German.
The UN identifies Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish as its six official languages. Delegates speaking in any of these languages will have their words simultaneously interpreted into all of the others, and attendees are provided with headphones through which they can hear the interpretations. A delegate is allowed to make a statement in a non-official language, but must provide either an interpreter or a written copy of his/her remarks translated into an official language. English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat, as most of the daily communication within the Secretariat and most of the signs in the UN headquarters building are in those languages.
The dominance of Latin among the literate elite may obscure the continuity of spoken languages, since all cultures within the Roman Empire were predominantly oral. In the West, Latin, referred to in its spoken form as Vulgar Latin, gradually replaced Celtic and Italic languages that were related to it by a shared Indo-European origin. Commonalities in syntax and vocabulary facilitated the adoption of Latin.
The precise number of creole languages is not known, particularly as many are poorly attested or documented. About one hundred creole languages have arisen since 1500. These are predominantly based on European languages such as English and French due to the European Age of Discovery and the Atlantic slave trade that arose at that time. With the improvements in ship-building and navigation, traders had to learn to communicate with people around the world, and the quickest way to do this was to develop a pidgin, or simplified language suited to the purpose; in turn, full creole languages developed from these pidgins. In addition to creoles that have European languages as their base, there are, for example, creoles based on Arabic, Chinese, and Malay. The creole with the largest number of speakers is Haitian Creole, with almost ten million native speakers, followed by Tok Pisin with about 4 million, most of whom are second-language speakers.
Belgium's three official languages are Dutch, spoken by 59% of the population, French, spoken by 40%, and German, spoken by less than 1%. The vast majority of Belgium's population, 99%, is literate as defined by the Belgian government, i.e. capable of reading and writing in an official language by the time a citizen has reached the age of 15.
As of 2009, the Italian language is officially used in twenty cities and municipalities and ten other settlements in Croatia, according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. It is an officially recognized minority language in Istria County, where it is spoken by 6.83% of the population on the aggregate and closer to 50% of the population in certain subdivisions.
A currency is a medium of exchange, such as money, banknotes, and coins. In Europe, the most commonly used currency is the euro (used by 25 countries); any country entering the European Union (EU) is expected to join the eurozone when they meet the five convergence criteria. Denmark is the only EU member which has been granted an exemption from using the euro, Sweden has also not adopted the Euro, although unlike Denmark, it has not formally opted out, instead, fails to meet the ERM II (Exchange Rate Mechanism) which results in the non-use of the Euro. For countries which hope to join the eurozone, there are five guidelines that need to be followed, grouped in the Maastricht criteria.
Bulgarian is the only language with official status and native for % of the population. It belongs to the Slavic group of languages, but it has a number of grammatical peculiarities, shared with its closest relative Macedonian, that set it apart from other Slavic languages: these include a complex verbal morphology (which also codes for distinctions in evidentiality), the absence of noun cases and infinitives, and the use of a suffixed definite article. Other major languages are Turkish and Romani, which according to the 2011 census were spoken natively by 9.1% and 4.2% respectively.
The Kingdom of Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French, and German. A number of non-official, minority languages and dialects are spoken as well.
In 1585, traveler and writer Marco A. Pigaffetta, in his "Itinerario" published in London, states: "In Constantinople it is customary to speak Croatian, a language which is understood by almost all official Turks, especially military men." Crucially though, the "lingua franca" at the time among Slavic elites in the Ottoman Empire was still Old Church Slavonic. For Italians traveling through to Istanbul, the language of the Slavic Croats was often the only exposure they had to any of the Slavic languages; indeed, Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects were far more common in Istanbul than Croatian.
The Language Law of 2009 recognizes Swedish as the "main" and "common" language of society as well as being the official language in "international contexts".
Most Romani speak one of several dialects of the Romani language, an Indo-Aryan language, with roots in Sanskrit. They also often speak the languages of the countries they live in. Typically, they also incorporate loanwords and calques into Romani from the languages of those countries and especially words for terms that the Romani language does not have. Most of the "Ciganos" of Portugal, the Gitanos of Spain, the Romanichal of the UK, and Scandinavian Travellers have lost their knowledge of pure Romani, and respectively speak the mixed languages Caló, Angloromany, and Scandoromani. Most of the speaker communities in these regions consist of later immigrants from eastern or central Europe.
Egyptian Arabic is the commonly spoken language, and is occasionally written in Arabic script, or in Arabic chat alphabet mostly on new communication services.
, 400 million people spoke English as their first language, and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. English is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin and Spanish. However, when combining native and non-native speakers it may, depending on the estimate used, be the most commonly spoken language in the world. English is spoken by communities on every continent and on oceanic islands in all the major oceans.
Most major world languages use words derived from "Eurṓpē" or "Europa" to refer to the continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word "Ōuzhōu" (歐洲/欧洲); a similar Chinese-derived term is also sometimes used in Japanese such as in the Japanese name of the European Union, , despite the katakana being more commonly used. In some Turkic languages the originally Persian name "Frangistan" ("land of the Franks") is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as "Avrupa" or "Evropa".
Writing was introduced by the Greeks and from there also brought to the Romans (6th century BC). There are five alphabets in regular use in the areas generally considered Europe. The Latin alphabet was developed into several scripts. In the early years of Europe, the Carolingian minuscules were the most important variety of the Latin script. From this two branches developed, the Gothic/Fracture/German tradition, which Germans used well into the 20th century, and the Italian/Italic/Antiqua/Latin tradition, still used. For some nations the integration into Europe meant giving up older scripts, e.g. the Germanic gave up the runes (Futhark) (3rd to 17th centuries), the Irish the Ogham script (4th to 7th centuries). The Cyrillic script is the second most widespread alphabet in Europe, and was developed in the 9th century under the influence of the Greek, Latin and Glagolitic alphabets. Both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets are used for multiple languages in multiple states, both inside and outside Europe. As well as these two, there are three alphabets used primarily for a single language, although they are occasionally applied to minority languages in the states from which they originate. The oldest of these alphabets is the Greek alphabet, which could be considered the progenitor of all the surviving alphabets of Europe, with the earliest recorded inscriptions appearing in the 9th century BC. The other two are both found in the Caucasus, both originating in the 5th century. The Georgian alphabet is used primarily to write Georgian, though it is also used to write the other Kartvelian languages, Svan, Mingrelian and Laz, all of which are found largely within the borders of Georgia. The Armenian alphabet is used to write the Armenian language, which has two dialects, and has been used to write Turkish in the past.
Within a few years this language had thousands of fluent speakers, primarily in eastern Europe. In 1905 its first world convention was held in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Since then world congresses have been held in different countries every year, except during the two World Wars. Esperanto has become "the most outlandishly successful invented language ever" and the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Esperanto is probably between the fifty languages which are most used internationally.
In Europe, as the domestic market is generally quite restricted, international trade is a norm. But there is no predominant language in Europe (with German spoken in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Belgium; French in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland; and English in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Malta). Most of the time, English is used as a communication language, but in multilingual countries such as Belgium (Dutch, French and German), Switzerland (German, French, Italian and Romanche), Luxembourg (Luxembourgish, French and German) or Spain (Spanish, Catalan, Basque and Galician), it is common to see employees mastering two or even three of those languages. Some languages such as Danish, Swedish and Norwegian or Croatian, Slovenian, Serbian and Bosnian are so close to each other that it is generally more common for meeting to use their mother tongue rather than English.