68-518: The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment , abbreviated in English as CEFR , CEF , or CEFRL , is a guideline used to describe achievements of learners of foreign languages across Europe and, increasingly, in other countries. The CEFR is also intended to make it easier for educational institutions and employers to evaluate the language qualifications of candidates for education admission or employment. Its main aim
136-972: A West Germanic language spoken in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands , Belgium and neighboring regions of Germany . It is distinct from German and Dutch, but originates from areas near where both are spoken. Roughly 215 million Europeans (primarily in Southern and Western Europe) are native speakers of Romance languages , the largest groups including: French ( c. 72 million), Italian ( c. 65 million), Spanish ( c. 40 million), Romanian ( c. 24 million), Portuguese ( c. 10 million), Catalan ( c. 7 million), Sicilian ( c. 5 million, also subsumed under Italian), Venetian ( c. 4 million), Galician ( c. 2 million), Sardinian ( c. 1 million), Occitan ( c. 500,000), besides numerous smaller communities. The Romance languages evolved from varieties of Vulgar Latin spoken in
204-605: A Common Framework of Reference for Languages for Canada published by Heritage Canada . This report contains a comparison of the CEFR to other standards in use in Canada and proposes an equivalence table. The resulting correspondence between the ILR and ACTFL scales disagrees with the generally accepted one. The ACTFL standards were developed so that Novice, Intermediate, Advanced and Superior would correspond to 0/0+, 1/1+, 2/2+ and 3/3+, respectively on
272-870: A colloquium in Cambridge in 2007 and the pilot case studies and findings were published in Studies in Language Testing (SiLT). The findings from the pilot projects then informed the Manual revision project from 2008 to 2009. The CEFR divides general competences in knowledge , skills , and existential competence with particular communicative competences in linguistic competence , sociolinguistic competence and pragmatic competence . This division does not exactly match previously well-known notions of communicative competence , but correspondences among them can be made. The CEFR has three principal dimensions: language activities,
340-585: A comprehensive equivalence table between the various forms of the TOEFL test, the Cambridge exam, the VEC level system, and the CEFR. (Levels according to French and German associations) HSK Level 3 HSK Level 4 HSK Level 5 HSK Level 6 LanguageCert International ESOL – Speaking Kleines Deutsches Sprachdiplom A1.2 Aleph Advanced C1.2 Vav Language schools and certificate bodies evaluate their equivalences against
408-634: A large subfamily of Indo-European, has a relatively small number of languages in Europe, and a small number of speakers ( Romani , c. 1.5 million). However, a number of Indo-Aryan languages not native to Europe are spoken in Europe today. Of the approximately 45 million Europeans speaking non-Indo-European languages, most speak languages within either the Uralic or Turkic families. Still smaller groups — such as Basque ( language isolate ), Semitic languages ( Maltese , c. 0.5 million), and various languages of
476-532: A learner is supposed to be able to do in reading, listening, speaking and writing. The following table indicates these levels. These descriptors can apply to any of the languages spoken in Europe and there are translations in many languages. Educational bodies for various languages have offered estimates for the amount of study needed to reach levels in the relevant language. Multiple organisations have been created to serve as an umbrella for language schools and certification businesses that claim compatibility with
544-578: A lingua franca to peoples in the range of the future nation until the consolidation and unification phases. If the nation becomes internationally influential, its language may become a lingua franca among nations that speak their own national languages. Europe has had no lingua franca ranging over its entire territory spoken by all or most of its populations during any historical period. Some linguae francae of past and present over some of its regions for some of its populations are: Historical attitudes towards linguistic diversity are illustrated by two French laws:
612-416: A lower level in listening and speaking. The ACTFL Performance Descriptors are defined in three different subsets of communications skills with their own more generalized grading scales in terms of domains, functions, contexts/ content, text type, language control, vocabulary, communication strategies, cultural awareness in all of the following modes of communication: Each year the organization names
680-457: A methodic way, this project pushed the adoption of similar practices to smaller languages, as requested by students. In late 2006–2010, the Keio University led the ambitious CEFR-inspired Action Oriented Plurilingual Language Learning Project to favour multi-campus and inter-language cooperation in creating teaching materials and assessment systems from child to university levels. Since 2015,
748-469: A resource and a haven for language educators. Since then, the organization has set industry standards, established proficiency guidelines, advocated for language education funding, and connected colleagues at the ACTFL Annual Convention. The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines provide a means of assessing the proficiency of a foreign language speaker. It is widely used in schools and universities in
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#1732845300822816-541: A small part of central Sweden). English has a long history of contact with Scandinavian languages, given the immigration of Scandinavians early in the history of Britain, and shares various features with the Scandinavian languages. Even so, especially Dutch and Swedish, but also Danish and Norwegian, have strong vocabulary connections to the German language . Limburgish (also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic) Is
884-442: A state level, whereas others continue to be actively suppressed. Though "there is a widespread belief—among both Deaf people and sign language linguists—that there are sign language families," the actual relationship between sign languages is difficult to ascertain. Concepts and methods used in historical linguistics to describe language families for written and spoken languages are not easily mapped onto signed languages. Some of
952-559: Is an educational standard defining "the competencies necessary for communication" and related knowledge for the benefit of educators in setting up educational programs. In a 2005 independent survey requested by the EU's Directorate-General for Education and Culture regarding the extent to which major European languages were spoken in member states. The results were published in a 2006 document, "Europeans and Their Languages", or "Eurobarometer 243". In this study, statistically relevant samples of
1020-499: Is an international association of institutions and organisations involved in language education, active throughout Europe and following the CEFR. In France, the Ministry for Education has created a government-mandated certificate called CLES, which formalises the use of the CEFR in language teaching programmes in French higher education institutions. In Germany, Telc, a non-profit agency, is
1088-491: Is an organization aiming to improve and expand the teaching and learning of all languages at all levels of instruction. ACTFL is an individual membership organization of more than 13,000 language educators and administrators from elementary through graduate education, as well as in government and industry. Founded in 1967 as a small offshoot of the Modern Language Association (MLA), ACTFL quickly became both
1156-500: Is divided into three subgroups: Uralic language family is native to northern Eurasia. Finnic languages include Finnish ( c. 5 million) and Estonian ( c. 1 million), as well as smaller languages such as Kven ( c. 8,000). Other languages of the Finno-Permic branch of the family include e.g. Mari (c. 400,000), and the Sami languages ( c. 30,000). The Ugric branch of
1224-598: Is intended to include any language variety with an ISO 639 code. However, it omits sign languages. Because the ISO-639-2 and ISO-639-3 codes have different definitions, this means that some communities of speakers may be listed more than once. For instance, speakers of Bavarian are listed both under "Bavarian" (ISO-639-3 code bar ) as well as under "German" (ISO-639-2 code de ). There are various definitions of Europe , which may or may not include all or parts of Turkey, Cyprus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. For convenience,
1292-508: Is now extinct; the only known surviving East Germanic texts are written in the Gothic language . West Germanic is divided into Anglo-Frisian (including English ), Low German , Low Franconian (including Dutch ) and High German (including Standard German ). The Anglo-Frisian language family is now mostly represented by English (Anglic) , descended from the Old English language spoken by
1360-514: Is to provide a method of learning, teaching, and assessing that applies to all languages in Europe . The CEFR was established by the Council of Europe between 1986 and 1989 as part of the "Language Learning for European Citizenship" project. In November 2001, a European Union Council Resolution recommended using the CEFR to set up systems of validation of language ability. The six reference levels (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2) are becoming widely accepted as
1428-748: The Italo-Dalmatian languages (sometimes grouped with Eastern Romance), including the Tuscan-derived Italian and numerous local Romance languages in Italy as well as Dalmatian , and the Western Romance languages . The Western Romance languages in turn separate into the Gallo-Romance languages , including Langues d'oïl such as French , the Francoprovencalic languages Arpitan and Faetar ,
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#17328453008221496-517: The Anglo-Saxons : The Frisian languages are spoken by about 400,000 (as of 2015 ) Frisians , who live on the southern coast of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany . These languages include West Frisian , East Frisian (of which the only surviving dialect is Saterlandic ) and North Frisian . Dutch is spoken throughout the Netherlands , the northern half of Belgium , as well as
1564-838: The Castilian languages . Slavic languages are spoken in large areas of Southern, Central and Eastern Europe . An estimated 315 million people speak a Slavic language, the largest groups being Russian ( c. 110 million in European Russia and adjacent parts of Eastern Europe, Russian forming the largest linguistic community in Europe), Polish ( c. 40 million ), Ukrainian ( c. 33 million ), Serbo-Croatian ( c. 18 million ), Czech ( c. 11 million ), Bulgarian ( c. 8 million ), Slovak ( c. 5 million ), Belarusian (c. 3.7 million ), Slovene ( c. 2.3 million ) and Macedonian ( c. 1.6 million ). Phylogenetically, Slavic
1632-630: The Council of Europe , founded in 1949, which affirms the right of minority language speakers to use their language fully and freely. The Council of Europe is committed to protecting linguistic diversity. Currently all European countries except France , Andorra and Turkey have signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities , while Greece , Iceland and Luxembourg have signed it, but have not ratified it; this framework entered into force in 1998. Another European treaty,
1700-534: The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , was adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe : it entered into force in 1998, and while it is legally binding for 24 countries, France , Iceland , Italy , North Macedonia , Moldova and Russia have chosen to sign without ratifying the convention. The main scripts used in Europe today are the Latin and Cyrillic . The Greek alphabet
1768-730: The Indo-European language family . Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. The three largest phyla of the Indo-European language family in Europe are Romance , Germanic , and Slavic ; they have more than 200 million speakers each, and together account for close to 90% of Europeans. Smaller phyla of Indo-European found in Europe include Hellenic ( Greek , c. 13 million), Baltic ( c. 4.5 million), Albanian ( c. 7.5 million), Celtic ( c. 4 million), and Armenian ( c. 4 million). Indo-Aryan , though
1836-764: The Latin alphabet used in Europe: Antiqua and Fraktur . Fraktur was used most for German, Estonian, Latvian, Norwegian and Danish whereas Antiqua was used for Italian, Spanish, French, Polish, Portuguese, English, Romanian, Swedish and Finnish. The Fraktur variant was banned by Hitler in 1941, having been described as " Schwabacher Jewish letters". Other scripts have historically been in use in Europe, including Phoenician, from which modern Latin letters descend, Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs on Egyptian artefacts traded during Antiquity, various runic systems used in Northern Europe preceding Christianisation, and Arabic during
1904-507: The Nord-Pas de Calais region of France . The traditional dialects of the Lower Rhine region of Germany are linguistically more closely related to Dutch than to modern German. In Belgian and French contexts, Dutch is sometimes referred to as Flemish . Dutch dialects are numerous and varied. German is spoken throughout Germany , Austria , Liechtenstein , much of Switzerland (including
1972-675: The Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts (1539), which said that every document in France should be written in French (neither in Latin nor in Occitan) and the Loi Toubon (1994), which aimed to eliminate anglicisms from official documents. States and populations within a state have often resorted to war to settle their differences. There have been attempts to prevent such hostilities: two such initiatives were promoted by
2040-760: The Rhaeto-Romance languages , and the Gallo-Italic languages ; the Occitano-Romance languages , grouped with either Gallo-Romance or East Iberian, including Occitanic languages such as Occitan and Gardiol , and Catalan ; Aragonese , grouped in with either Occitano-Romance or West Iberian, and finally the West Iberian languages , including the Astur-Leonese languages , the Galician-Portuguese languages , and
2108-617: The national language , and a number of language academies were established: 1582 Accademia della Crusca in Florence, 1617 Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft in Weimar, 1635 Académie française in Paris, 1713 Real Academia Española in Madrid. Language became increasingly linked to nation as opposed to culture, and was also used to promote religious and ethnic identity: e.g. different Bible translations in
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2176-496: The "Research on Plurilinguistic and Pluricultural Skill Development in Integrated Foreign Language Education" has followed up. The framework was translated into Chinese in 2008. In 2011, French sinologist Joël Bellassen suggests the CEFR together with its metalanguage could and should be adapted to distant languages such as Chinese , with the necessity to adapt and extend it with relevant concepts proper to
2244-524: The ACTFL National Language Teacher of the Year. The Teacher of the Year becomes a spokesperson for the language profession to increase the visibility of the importance of learning languages and cultures to the general public. The Language Educator (TLE) magazine is ACTFL's membership publication. TLE is published quarterly with issues available to members in print and for digital download and via
2312-458: The ACTFL is stricter with regard to receptive skills than productive skills, compared to the CEFR. The following table may not be read as an indication of what ACTFL level follows from taking a CEFR-aligned test. For convenience, the following abbreviations will be used for the ACTFL levels: Similar correspondence has been proposed for the other direction (test aligned to CEFR) in a panel discussion at
2380-508: The CEFR calls domains. Four broad domains are distinguished: educational, occupational, public and personal. These largely correspond to register . A language user can develop various degrees of competence in each of these domains and to help describe them, the CEFR has provided a set of six Common Reference Levels (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2). The Common European Framework divides learners into three broad divisions that can each be further divided into two levels; for each level, it describes what
2448-454: The CEFR has been connected to recent changes in English language policy, efforts to reform higher education, orientation toward economic opportunities and a tendency for administrators to look outwards for domestic solutions. Noriyuki (2009) observes the "mechanical" reuse of the European framework and concepts by Japanese teachers of mostly Western languages, missing the recontextualisation part:
2516-624: The CEFR. For example, the European Association for Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA) is an initiative funded by the European Community to promote the CEFR and best practices in delivering professional language training. The Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE) is a consortium of academic organisations that aims at standardising assessment methods. Eaquals (Evaluation and Accreditation of Quality in Language Services)
2584-569: The Caucasus — account for less than 1% of the European population among them. Immigration has added sizeable communities of speakers of African and Asian languages, amounting to about 4% of the population, with Arabic being the most widely spoken of them. Five languages have more than 50 million native speakers in Europe: Russian , German , French , Italian , and English . Russian is the most-spoken native language in Europe, and English has
2652-825: The European standard for grading an individual's language proficiency . An intergovernmental symposium in 1991 titled "Transparency and Coherence in Language Learning in Europe: Objectives, Evaluation, Certification" held by the Swiss Federal Authorities in the Swiss municipality of Rüschlikon found the need for a common European framework for languages to improve the recognition of language qualifications and help teachers co-operate. A project followed to develop language-level classifications for certification to be recognised across Europe. A preliminary version of
2720-549: The ILR scale. Also, the ILR and NB OPS scales do not correspond despite the fact that the latter was modelled on the former. A 2007 document by Macdonald and Vandergrift estimates the following correspondences (for oral ability) between the Public Service Commission levels and the CEFR levels: Language schools may also propose their own equivalence tables. For example, the Vancouver English Centre provides
2788-470: The Manual for Relating Language Examinations to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) was published in 2003. This draft version was piloted in a number of projects, which included linking a single test to the CEFR, linking suites of exams at different levels and national studies by exam boards and research institutes. Practitioners and academics shared their experiences at
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2856-779: The Osaka University of Foreign Studies by one of the coauthors of the CEFR, Brian North. He stated that a "sensible hypothesis" would be for C2 to correspond to "Distinguished," C1 to "Superior," B2 to "Advanced-mid" and B1 to "Intermediate-high" in the ACTFL system. This agrees with a table published by the American University Center of Provence giving the following correspondences according to "estimated equivalencies by certified ACTFL administrator": The following table summarises three earlier proposed equivalences between CEFR and ACTFL. Some of them only refer to one activity (e.g. speaking). The French Academy Baltimore suggests
2924-631: The United States and the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview is the most widely used oral proficiency test in North America. The guidelines are broken up into different proficiency levels: These proficiency levels are defined separately for ability to listen, speak, read and write. Thus, in those American programs that emphasize written language over spoken, students may reach the advanced level in reading and writing while remaining at
2992-513: The chancellery of Meissen in Saxony, Middle German, and the chancellery of Prague in Bohemia ("Common German")). But several other nations also began to develop a standard variety in the 16th century. Europe has had a number of languages that were considered linguae francae over some ranges for some periods according to some historians. Typically in the rise of a national language the new language becomes
3060-502: The current understandings of sign language relationships, however, provide some reasonable estimates about potential sign language families: In the Middle Ages the two most important defining elements of Europe were Christianitas and Latinitas . The earliest dictionaries were glossaries: more or less structured lists of lexical pairs (in alphabetical order or according to conceptual fields). The Latin-German (Latin-Bavarian) Abrogans
3128-554: The domains in which the language activities occur, and the competencies on which a person draws when they engage in them. The CEFR distinguishes four kinds of language activities: reception (listening and reading), production (spoken and written), interaction (spoken and written) and mediation (translating and interpreting). General and particular communicative competencies are developed by producing or receiving texts in various contexts under various conditions and constraints. These contexts correspond to various sectors of social life that
3196-608: The era of the Ottoman Empire. Hungarian rovás was used by the Hungarian people in the early Middle Ages, but it was gradually replaced with the Latin-based Hungarian alphabet when Hungary became a kingdom, though it was revived in the 20th century and has certain marginal, but growing area of usage since then. The European Union (as of 2021) had 27 member states accounting for a population of 447 million, or about 60% of
3264-561: The federal government's exclusive partner for language tests taken at the end of the integration courses for migrants, following the CEFR standards. The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages has published a one-directional alignment table of levels according to its ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and the CEFR levels. It is based on the work of the ACTFL-CEFR Alignment Conferences that started in 2010. Generally,
3332-469: The following different equivalence: A study by Buck, Papageorgiou and Platzek addresses the correspondence between the difficulty of test items under the CEFR and ILR standards. The most common ILR levels for items of given CEFR difficulty were as follows: As Canada increasingly uses the CEFR, Larry Vandergrift of the University of Ottawa has proposed Canadian adoption of the CEFR in his report Proposal for
3400-700: The framework. Differences in estimation have been found to exist, for example, with the same level on the PTE A , TOEFL , and IELTS , and is a cause of debate between test producers. The CEFR, initially developed to ease human mobility and economic growth within the highly multilingual European Union, has since influenced and been borrowed by various other areas. In Japan, the adoption of CEFR has been encouraged by academics, institutional actors ( MEXT ), politicians, business associations, and by learners themselves. Adoption in Malaysia has also been documented. In Vietnam, adoption of
3468-464: The historical sphere of influence of the Ottoman Empire , see Turks in Europe ). Armenians , Berbers , and Kurds have diaspora communities of c. 1–2,000,000 each. The various languages of Africa and languages of India form numerous smaller diaspora communities. American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages ACTFL ( American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages )
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#17328453008223536-656: The language family is represented in Europe by the Hungarian language ( c. 13 million), historically introduced with the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin of the 9th century. The Samoyedic Nenets language is spoken in Nenets Autonomous Okrug of Russia, located in the far northeastern corner of Europe (as delimited by the Ural Mountains ). Several dozen manual languages exist across Europe, with
3604-437: The languages and associated statistics for all five of these countries are grouped together on this page, as they are usually presented at a national, rather than subnational, level. Recent (post–1945) immigration to Europe introduced substantial communities of speakers of non-European languages. The largest such communities include Arabic speakers (see Arabs in Europe ) and Turkish speakers (beyond European Turkey and
3672-499: The largest number of speakers in total, including some 200 million speakers of English as a second or foreign language . (See English language in Europe .) The Indo-European language family is descended from Proto-Indo-European , which is believed to have been spoken thousands of years ago. Early speakers of Indo-European daughter languages most likely expanded into Europe with the incipient Bronze Age , around 4,000 years ago ( Bell-Beaker culture ). The Germanic languages make up
3740-459: The member state may communicate with the EU in any of the designated languages, and view "EU regulations and other legislative documents" in that language. The European Union and the Council of Europe have been collaborating in education of member populations in languages for "the promotion of plurilingualism" among EU member states. The joint document, " Common European Framework of Reference for Languages : Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR)",
3808-423: The most widespread sign language family being the Francosign languages , with its languages found in countries from Iberia to the Balkans and the Baltics . Accurate historical information of sign and tactile languages is difficult to come by, with folk histories noting the existence signing communities across Europe hundreds of years ago. British Sign Language (BSL) and French Sign Language (LSF) are probably
3876-457: The need to adapt the conceptual vocabulary to the local language and to adapt the framework to the local public, its language and practices. Around 2005, the Osaka University of Foreign Studies developed a CEFR-inspired project for its 25 foreign languages, with a transparent and common evaluation approach. While major languages had long had well-defined tools for the Japanese public, able to guide teachers in teaching and performing assessments in
3944-599: The new language and its learners. Various efforts on adaptation to Chinese have been made. In Japan, East-Asian language teaching is largely ignored due to Japanese society being mainly oriented toward Western language teaching, missing a valuable opportunity for Japanese to directly reach neighbouring countries and for smaller languages to solidify their languages teaching. [REDACTED] Media related to Common European Framework of Reference for Languages at Wikimedia Commons Languages of Europe There are over 250 languages indigenous to Europe , and most belong to
4012-715: The northeast areas bordering on Germany and Austria), northern Italy ( South Tyrol ), Luxembourg , the East Cantons of Belgium and the Alsace and Lorraine regions of France . There are several groups of German dialects: Low German is spoken in various regions throughout Northern Germany and the northern and eastern parts of the Netherlands. It is an official language in Germany . It may be separated into West Low German and East Low German . The North Germanic languages are spoken in Nordic countries and include Swedish ( Sweden and parts of Finland ), Danish ( Denmark ), Norwegian ( Norway ), Icelandic ( Iceland ), Faroese ( Faroe Islands ), and Elfdalian (in
4080-479: The oldest confirmed, continuously used sign languages. Alongside German Sign Language (DGS) according to Ethnologue , these three have the most numbers of signers, though very few institutions take appropriate statistics on contemporary signing populations, making legitimate data hard to find. Notably, few European sign languages have overt connections with the local majority/oral languages, aside from standard language contact and borrowing , meaning grammatically
4148-496: The population in each country were asked to fill out a survey form concerning the languages that they spoke with sufficient competency "to be able to have a conversation". The following is a table of European languages. The number of speakers as a first or second language (L1 and L2 speakers) listed are speakers in Europe only; see list of languages by number of native speakers and list of languages by total number of speakers for global estimates on numbers of speakers. The list
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#17328453008224216-425: The population of Europe. The European Union has designated by agreement with the member states 24 languages as "official and working": Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. This designation provides member states with two "entitlements":
4284-524: The predominant language family in Western, Northern and Central Europe . It is estimated that over 500 million Europeans are speakers of Germanic languages , the largest groups being German ( c. 95 million), English ( c. 400 million) , Dutch ( c. 24 million), Swedish ( c. 10 million), Danish ( c. 6 million), Norwegian ( c. 5 million) and Limburgish (c. 1.3 million). There are two extant major sub-divisions: West Germanic and North Germanic . A third group, East Germanic ,
4352-413: The same language for Catholics and Protestants. The first languages whose standardisation was promoted included Italian ( questione della lingua : Modern Tuscan/Florentine vs. Old Tuscan/Florentine vs. Venetian → Modern Florentine + archaic Tuscan + Upper Italian), French (the standard is based on Parisian), English (the standard is based on the London dialect) and (High) German (based on the dialects of
4420-537: The sign languages and the oral languages of Europe are quite distinct from one another. Due to (visual/aural) modality differences, most sign languages are named for the larger ethnic nation in which they are spoken, plus the words "sign language", rendering what is spoken across much of France , Wallonia and Romandy as French Sign Language or LSF for: l angue des s ignes f rançaise . Recognition of non-oral languages varies widely from region to region. Some countries afford legal recognition, even to official on
4488-413: The various parts of the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity . Latin was itself part of the (otherwise extinct) Italic branch of Indo-European. Romance languages are divided phylogenetically into Italo-Western , Eastern Romance (including Romanian ) and Sardinian . The Romance-speaking area of Europe is occasionally referred to as Latin Europe . Italo-Western can be further broken down into
4556-434: Was among the first. A new wave of lexicography can be seen from the late 15th century onwards (after the introduction of the printing press, with the growing interest in standardisation of languages). The concept of the nation state began to emerge in the early modern period . Nations adopted particular dialects as their national language. This, together with improved communications, led to official efforts to standardise
4624-463: Was derived from the Phoenician alphabet , and Latin was derived from the Greek via the Old Italic alphabet . In the Early Middle Ages, Ogham was used in Ireland and runes (derived from Old Italic script) in Scandinavia. Both were replaced in general use by the Latin alphabet by the Late Middle Ages. The Cyrillic script was derived from the Greek with the first texts appearing around 940 AD. Around 1900 there were mainly two typeface variants of
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