German has more native speakers in Europe than any other language in the EU: nearly one hundred million, most of whom live in the Federal Republic and Austria. Well into […]
Marijke van der Meer
10 posts
Italian has about 70 million speakers in Italy. The language has the capacity to lift even people who cannot understand a word of the language to soaring heights, in the […]
The Romans never made it up as far north as Scandinavia and Christianity arrived late, so the languages in Europe’s far north did not undergo the influence of Latin that […]
When Columbus “discovered” America on behalf of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492, he paved the way for Spanish to become the dominant language of Latin America. But Spanish […]
Portuguese is one of Europe’s world languages. With more than 200 million native speakers in Brazil alone, as compared to just over 10 million in Europe itself, Portuguese shares the […]
Did you know that Picasso did not grow up speaking Spanish, that Richard Burton did not grow up speaking English, and that Napoleon did not grow up speaking French? Nor […]
For over two centuries now, English has continued to advance at a phenomenal pace as the dominant language in numerous areas affecting the lives of people around the world: in […]
Languages change constantly. Dutch has been around since the Middle Ages but it was not until the Golden Age of prosperity in the 17th century that the Dutch language fully […]
French is an official language in three European Union countries—in France, Belgium and Luxemburg, where it is spoken by over 75 million people. But outside of Europe it is an […]