Languages Portal, November 2005

A new Languages portal has been launched at http://europa.eu.int/languages/en/home with a direct link from the Discover the EU section of the menu on Europa’s home page. The new site brings together a variety of information about languages and their use in the EU under the headings linguistic diversity, language learning, language teaching, translation, interpretation, and language technology. Under each heading are sub-headings including policies, activities, funding, bookshelf, services and news together with others specific only to a particular section. The static information is available in all twenty official languages (soon to be twenty-one with the inclusion of Irish from 1st January 2007), while the more dynamic areas of the site will be offered in a more limited number of language versions. The commitment to linguistic diversity is written into the Charter on the Fundamental Rights of the European Union adopted in 2000. By bringing together in the new portal all aspects of how the EU approaches languages, it highlights what this commitment means in practical terms.