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Reference.org
Languages of Europe
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<p>There are over 250 languages indigenous to Europe, and most belong to the <a href="/facts/Indo-European_language_family/L34TfgSr">Indo-European language family</a>. Out of a <a href="/facts/Demographics_of_Europe/eo56Hqr6">total European population</a> 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 <a href="/facts/Romance_languages/TMK4KHI3">Romance</a>, <a href="/facts/Germanic_languages/BxAJX3Kf">Germanic</a>, and <a href="/facts/Slavic_languages/b5GaeFx1">Slavic</a>; they have more than 200 million speakers each, and together account for close to 90% of Europeans. </p><p>Smaller phyla of Indo-European found in Europe include <a href="/facts/Hellenic_languages/8968kKo7">Hellenic</a> , <a href="/facts/Baltic_languages/Jmj2ckcI">Baltic</a> (c. 4.5 million), <a href="/facts/Albanian_language/6CyC8GPJ">Albanian</a> (c. 7.5 million), <a href="/facts/Celtic_language/edRrGrMF">Celtic</a> (c. 4 million), and <a href="/facts/Armenian_language/tELuE2wG">Armenian</a> (c. 4 million). <a href="/facts/Indo-Aryan_languages/hm2N7fYp">Indo-Aryan</a>, though a large subfamily of Indo-European, has a relatively small number of languages in Europe, and a small number of speakers (<a href="/facts/Romani_language/NouAKyrh">Romani</a>, c. 1.5 million). However, a number of Indo-Aryan languages not native to Europe are spoken in Europe today. </p><p>Of the approximately 45 million Europeans speaking non-Indo-European languages, most speak languages within either the <a href="/facts/Uralic_languages/4K0r9XRI">Uralic</a> or <a href="/facts/Turkic_languages/RXqsmfgh">Turkic</a> families. Still smaller groups — such as <a href="/facts/Basque_language/rEMpH97p">Basque</a> (<a href="/facts/Language_isolate/229etAHg">language isolate</a>), <a href="/facts/Semitic_languages/WCYrz4Qm">Semitic languages</a> (<a href="/facts/Maltese_language/Rgelh3pf">Maltese</a>, c. 0.5 million), and various <a href="/facts/Languages_of_the_Caucasus/GXBJ449t">languages of the Caucasus</a> — 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 <a href="/facts/Arabic/A1e66hVV">Arabic</a> being the most widely spoken of them. </p><p>Five languages have more than 50 million native speakers in Europe: <a href="/facts/Russian_language/ETXrTgHV">Russian</a>, <a href="/facts/German_language/oWaQIDA8">German</a>, <a href="/facts/French_language/qe1DnaQh">French</a>, <a href="/facts/Italian_language/YXsmvlQG">Italian</a>, and <a href="/facts/English_language/tpkxGt7b">English</a>. Russian is the most-spoken <a href="/facts/Native_language/1yK3tnLb">native language</a> in Europe, and English has the largest number of speakers in total, including some 200 million speakers of <a href="/facts/English_as_a_second_or_foreign_language/mQ4TeFYL">English as a second or foreign language</a>. (See <a href="/facts/English_language_in_Europe/JzdnpaGv">English language in Europe</a>.) </p>