1. Germanic, Slavic, and Romance
Languages of Europe
Germanic, Slavic, and Romance

2. GERMANIC ROMANCE SLAVIC

3. Germanic Spoken in Northwest and Central Europe Example Languages
English & German
Largest of the three language groups
Derived from the Germanic tribes
(750 B.C.)

5. Slavic Spoken in central and eastern Europe Language- Russian
Russian the most widely spoken
Russian is the largest native language in Europe
Cyrillic alphabet
Cyrillic alphabet is derived from the Greek alphabet. Many of the letters look the same. There are only some slight differences.

7. Romance Spoken in south and west Europe Derived from Latin Language
Languages:
Spanish
French
Italian
Derived from Latin Language
Latin no longer spoken as a native language

9. Europe’s Language Barriers
Hard to live, work and trade with people
Most school children learn 1 or 2 other languages besides their own
EU has 23 official languages
Trying to keep alive the languages spoken by few

10. Review
Besides differences in words, what other challenge do Europeans face in communicating with each other?
What have Europeans done to try and solve the problem of so many languages?
In what ways are the French and Italian languages alike?
Which European language has the largest number of native speakers?
What ways is Russian different from the other languages?