European Day of Languages Celebrates Diversity of Cultures

On 26th September, many events will take place throughout Europe in celebration of European Day of Languages. Examples of such events include television and radio programs, language classes and conferences.

The European Day of Languages was organized by Euro Europe for the first time in 2001 as part of the European Year of Languages. It included 47 countries and represented 800 million Europeans. It endorses the linguistic diversity of over 200 European languages, about 60 regional/minority languages, and many other languages from all around the world.

Each year, a common theme is proposed by the Euro Council. However, the day is decentralized and flexible so that each member state can organize their own events with their own unique approach.

The European Day of Languages is celebrated to unite European countries and to encourage and enable people to learn a new language. The knowledge of languages is becoming increasingly important due to globalization.

The overall objective of this day is to raise the awareness of Europe’s linguistic diversity, which should be preserved, and to encourage people of all ages to learn languages.

National organizations, EU institutions and Euro Europe will provide a large variety of programs, such as language courses, games, discussions, conferences, radio programs. 

In Germany, the events will include a symposium on literary translation: a one-day event with discussions on various aspects of literary translation and performances showing the difficulties of literary translations. Moreover, there will be mini-language courses organized which will be open to anybody interested in joining.

To make this day even more exciting, people also have the chance to vote for the most innovative EDL event on the organizer’s respective website.