The history of the European continent has defined countries that we recognize as having regional languages as well as official languages. Because of that, several countries are multilingual and it is quite common to learn several languages at once and use them on a daily basis.
Within minority languages, Catalan is the language with the most speakers in the European Union.
Below is a list of the main minority languages in the EU that include more than half a million speakers.
- Catalan: 7,200,000 speakers in Spain, France, Italy and Andorra.
- Galician: 2,420,000 speakers in Spain.
- Occitan: 2,100,000 speakers in Spain, France and Italy.
- Sardinian: 1,300,000 speakers in Italy.
- Irish: 1,240,000 speakers in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
- Basque: 683,000 speakers in Spain and France.
- Welsh: 508,000 speakers in the United Kingdom.
Source: IDESCAT. EUROMOSAIC Study.
