The evolution of language in Europe and the effects on family

In this presentation a talked about the evolution of languages in Europe and its effects on family and, as an example I presented my own background, my family and my friends.

The European Union (EU) is an economic and political union of 27 member states. The languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the twenty-three official languages of the European Union along with a range of others. (FACT: The most widely spoken mother tongue in the EU is German, while more than 50% can understand English.

French is an official language common to the three cities that are political centres of the Union: Brussels (Belgium), Strasbourg (France) and Luxembourg city (Luxembourg), while Catalan, Galician and Russian are the most widely used non-recognized languages in the EU.)

The asserts that it is in favour of linguistic diversity and currently has a European Commissioner for Multilingualism, Leonard Orban.The Commissioner for Multilingualism was responsible for language policy of the European Union, i.e. promoting multilingualism for the citizens and the institutions of the EU. It was created on 1 January 2007 during the Barroso Commission. The only commissioner is Leonard Orban (2007–2010).The new portfolio was criticised for vagueness and ambiguity. Some claimed that it would be better to create a portfolio for the protection of ethnic minorities rather than promoting foreign languages learning.

Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. The generic term for a multilingual person is polyglot. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of globalization and cultural openness. Thanks to the ease of access to information, facilitated by the internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages is getting more and more frequent, and triggering therefore the need to acquire more and more languages.

This phenomenon is the result of the greater mobility of people and consequent cross-linguistic relationships and therefore, an increasing number of children are growing up with early exposures to two languages in the family.