European Day of Languages 2022

Today was the 21st anniversary of the European Day of Languages.  

It was an initiative of the Council of Europe, and together with the European Commission, it has been celebrated every year since 2001. 

Here are the top ten most spoken native languages in Europe.

1. Russian with 160 million native speakers.  It's the official language in four countries and commonly spoken in former Soviet republics.
2. German has around 97 million native speakers.  While it's the second most spoken language in Europe it is the most spoken language in the European Union.
3. French has around 71,5 million native speakers with almost 20% of people in the EU able to speak it as a 1st or 2nd language.  French is the second most-taught language in the world after English.
4. Italian has about 65 million native speakers in Europe.
5. English as only about 63 million native speakers but once you leave Euroland that number jumps up to more than 1 billion making in the most spoken native language in the world.  
6. Spanish has only 47 million native speakers in Europe but worldwide there are almost 493 million native speakers making the world's second most spoken native language after English.
7. Polish has about 38,5 million native speakers.
8. Ukrainian has about 32,6 million native speakers.  While the majority are located in Ukraine, you can hear Ukrainian spoken across all of Europe with so many refugees from Russia's invasion of the country.
9. Romanian has about 24 million native speakers if you include Moldovan which is pretty much the same thing.
10. Dutch comes in 10th place with 22 million native speakers.

Czech comes in 15th place after Turkish, Greek, Hungarian, and Swedish.  Czech only has 10,6 million native speakers and it's only an official language here in Czechland.  

Я за Україну. Я за Україною. Слава Україні  Stojím za Ukrajinou!  I stand with Ukraine.