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EUROPEAN DAY  OF LANGUAGES

26th September 2020 

 

"Discovering the world through languages, even from our own homes

By Sophie Aristotelous

I am a recent Journalism MA graduate from London. I interviewed the Council ofEurope for a feature I wrote on European Day of Languages in a children’s newsmagazine I created as part of my degree. I thought it was a great way to introduce my young readers to learning about languages and the world around them.

Every year, on September 26, European Day of Languages is celebrated, and this year is no different.

Despite the Coronavirus affecting many aspects of our lives, including travel and social events, hundreds of events have been organised so far for this year’s EuropeanDay of Languages, with around 200,000 people involved.

Events, big and small, are registered annually on the Council of Europe’s calendar.They are expecting up to 1,000 events to take place in total this year.

Although this is on a somewhat smaller scale than the 1,400 events arranged last year, Michael Armstrong, Head of Administration at the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe, explained why the day is still important in 2020.

He said: “We may not be able to travel this year but through languages we can discover culture.”

This sentiment echoes the motto for this year’s celebration, “discover the world through languages”.

A language day was first introduced on September 26 in 2002. This followed the European Year of Languages which, jointly coordinated by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, took place in 2001.

The day was created to celebrate language learning and remind people that we live in a multicultural world. It brings different languages together and is a celebration of diversity.

Although there are more than 225 languages spoken in Europe, this is only 3% of the languages in the world.

However, celebrations extend much further than the one continent. In fact, there has been an event to celebrate European Day of Languages on every continent, apart from Antarctica.

Michael said: “It’s also not just about European languages as people from all over theworld have migrated to Europe and we want to celebrate this too.” (…)

European Day of Languages is for all people, but it is most often celebrated in schools.

Michael explained: “Teachers dress up in national costumes and children from different linguistic backgrounds can become the star of the day and share it with their class.” 

(in https://edl.ecml.at/Portals/33/documents/Discovering-the-world-through-languages-even-from-our-own-homes.pdf?ver=2020-09-25-123646-407)

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