Nitobe Centre for language democracy
Language questions
Languages in the EU - Ethnic languages
Here is a table of ethnic languages in the EU and surrounding area. (The table is not comprehensive and for some languages the presentation has been simplified; e.g. Sami consists of several languages and dialects.)
The numbers of speakers below include only those in European countries. The statistics are based primarily on www.ethnologue.org. In the "Region" column, only the most important areas for the given language are mentioned.
| Language | Group | Region | Speakers |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Germanic | Great Britain, Ireland, parts of Malta | 70 000 000 |
| Danish | Germanic | Denmark and Schleswig | 5 000 000 |
| Faroese | Germanic | Faroe Islands | 45 000 |
| Flemish | Germanic | Flanders (region of Belgium) | 1 070 000 |
| Frisian | Germanic | Mainly in the northern Netherlands | 720 000 |
| German | Germanic | Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, parts of Italy and Belgium | 100 000 000 |
| Icelandic | Germanic | Iceland | 250 000 |
| Yiddish | Germanic | Mainly in parts of eastern Europe | 60 000 |
| Luxembourgish | Germanic | Luxembourg | 390 000 |
| Dutch | Germanic | The Netherlands, parts of Belgium | 17 000 000 |
| Norwegian | Germanic | Norway | 5 000 000 |
| Low German | Germanic | Northern Germany | 90 000 |
| Scots | Germanic | Scotland | 100 000 |
| Swedish | Germanic | Sweden, parts of Finland and Estonia | 9 000 000 |
| Aragonese | Romance | Aragon (region of Spain) | 11 000 |
| Asturian | Romance | Spain, Portugal | 100 000 |
| French | Romance | France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Monaco | 70 000 000 |
| Galician | Romance | Galicia (northern Spain) | 3 190 000 |
| Spanish | Romance | Spain | 40 000 000 |
| Italian | Romance | Italy, Switzerland | 55 295 000 |
| Ladino | Romance | Parts of Greece | 10 000 |
| Catalan | Romance | Catalonia, Valencia | 6 600 000 |
| Corsican | Romance | Corsica | 350 000 |
| Portuguese | Romance | Portugal | 10 000 000 |
| Romansch | Romance | Switzerland | 40 000 |
| Romanian | Romance | Romania, Moldova | 28 000 000 |
| Sardinian | Romance | Sardinia | 1 500 000 |
| Walloon | Romance | Wallonia (southern Belgium) | 1 120 000 |
| Bulgaria | Slavic | Bulgaria | 9 000 000 |
| Czech | Slavic | Czech Republic | 12 000 000 |
| Croatian | Slavic | Croatia | 6 200 000 |
| Polish | Slavic | Poland | 40 000 000 |
| Serbian | Slavic | Serbia & Montenegro | 11 000 000 |
| Slovak | Slavic | Slovakia | 6 000 000 |
| Slovenian | Slavic | Slovenia | 2 200 000 |
| Sorbian | Slavic | Eastern Germany | 80 000 |
| Latvian | Baltic | Latvia | 1 500 000 |
| Lithuanian | Baltic | Lithuanian | 3 000 000 |
| Greek | Greek | Greece, Cyprus | 12 000 000 |
| Albanian | Albanian | Albania, Serbia & Montenegro (Kosovo), Macedonia | 6 169 000 |
| Breton | Celtic | Brittany (France) | 500 000 |
| Gaelic | Celtic | Scotland | 59 000 |
| Irish | Celtic | Ireland | 355 000 |
| Welsh | Celtic | Wales (Britain) | 500 000 |
| Finnish | Finno-urgic | Finland and parts of Sweden | 5 000 000 |
| Estonian | Finno-urgic | Estonia | 1 000 000 |
| Sami | Finno-urgic | Northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia | 30 000 |
| Karelian | Finno-urgic | Karelia, Finland | 120 000 |
| Hungarian | Finno-urgic | Hungary | 14 500 000 |
| Turkish | Altaic | Turkey, parts of Bulgaria and Cyprus | 50 000 |
| Basque | Basque | Basque country (Spain, France) | 655 000 |
| Maltese | Semitic | Malta | 330 000 |
| Romany | Indo-aryan | Among the Roma throughout Europe | 1 000 000 |
