European Day of Languages 2025: What Are We Really Celebrating?

The 26th September every year marks the European Day of Languages, and it is (along with the International Mother Language Day) one of the two days dearest to my heart as a linguist committed to celebrating linguistic diversity. On this day, in schools across Europe, students prepare posters and games, ministries issue statements, and the media dutifully reminds us that Europe is home to more than 200 languages. This is all very laudable, and, in writing what follows, I do not in any way wish to detract from the value of such awareness-raising. But the critical linguist inside me also compels me to ask: what exactly is it that we’re celebrating?

What follows, then, is a loosely connected set of reflections on the tensions and possibilities that this celebration brings to mind; and I hope you’ll read on and think along with me.

Let us go then, you and I...

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Languages, celebration and oppression

It is difficult, for instance, to ignore how uncomfortably the rhetoric of celebration sits alongside everyday realities in schools. In many education systems, across Europe, provision for languages that are ‘less useful’ is shrinking.

I am painfully reminded of my unsuccessful attempts, when I was working with ‘Model-Experimental’ schools in Greece, to diversify the Modern Languages curriculum by adding languages such as Chinese and Albanian; and the decision, at around the same time, to axe the Spanish and Italian courses across Greece¹ so as to consolidate teaching around English, German and French.

Outside Greece, too, curricula increasingly prioritise the national language and English, sometimes alongside another major European language, while smaller or minority languages struggle to secure space, or even visibility. Heritage languages, spoken in homes and communities across the continent, are often invisible in schools. As Schwarzl et al. (2019)² note in their study of schools in Vienna and Brno, minority languages are routinely suppressed even in the playgrounds through what is tactfully described as “setting limits” (p. 216).

Which languages do we sustain? And which ones are overlooked?

And even in contexts that claim to recognise and respect such diversity, more often than not, difference is managed in technocratic ways: token days, festivals, or add-on activities, rather than being integrated into meaningful pedagogy. In a research project that I did with a colleague, where we investigated family language policies, we were often told by parents that schoolteachers discouraged them from using their home languages, because they were ‘confusing’ the children and ‘slowing down’ their academic progress.³ It is hard not to feel disheartened by the hypocrisy of celebrating diversity on paper, while quietly discouraging it in practice.

Languages, the economy and the ghost of democracy

I sometimes think that if you’ve read a school policy document, you’ve read them all. Most national curricula, for instance, are keen to underscore the link between language learning and democracy. Plurilingual citizens, the narrative goes, are better prepared for dialogue across difference, for engaging with diverse perspectives, for nurturing democratic values. At the risk of sounding too naively romantic, I agree with this statement more than I disagree with it.

But there is a difference between a curriculum as a plan and a curriculum as enacted policy, and this difference is often striking when it comes to language education. Far too often, what we see is language teaching reduced to functional skills: ordering a coffee, drafting a CV, passing a proficiency exam; all of which are useful, perhaps, but hardly transformative. This narrowing of purpose, I would argue, is not accidental.

Marnie Holborow (2015)⁴ reminds us that such a narrowing down of language education reflects the ongoing commodification of language under neoliberal conditions. Seen through this perspective, languages are framed less as resources for meaning-making, identity, or democratic participation, and more as skills that can be itemised on a resume, traded on the labour market, or consumed as part of lifestyle tourism. In such framings, the value of learning French, German, or English is measured by how much “capital” it adds to one’s employability, rather than by the new horizons it opens for thinking, relating, and imagining differently.

Language classrooms should be privileged spaces for democracy, where learners listen to unfamiliar voices, grapple with difference and find words to express their hybrid identities.

If education is indeed about nurturing democracy, then language classrooms should be privileged spaces for it. They should be places where learners grapple with difference, listen to unfamiliar voices, and find words to express complex identities. That, to me, would be worth celebrating.

Languages, algorithms and the silencing of difference

Increasingly, it is becoming impossible to talk about languages without talking about artificial intelligence. The increasing use of AI tools in language education holds considerable promise: it can lower barriers, make smaller languages more visible online, and offer access to texts that would otherwise remain inaccessible. And in many ways, the wide availability of AI tools is reducing dependence on top-down teacher authority – creating some hope for more learner-centredness and democratic practices.

But, that said, I am not sure we should treat all this as an unqualified gain. We know, for instance, that AI systems are overwhelmingly trained on English-dominant data, and that languages with a less visible digital footprint (including sign languages and languages with only a spoken form) are increasingly marginalised. We also know that generative AI outputs tend to “smooth out” linguistic difference, nudging communication towards homogenisation. Subtleties of register, regional varieties, or culturally embedded forms of expression are often lost in the process, and this is a non-trivial loss.

AI tools designed to open up communication may be narrowing the space for linguistic diversity.

What emerges is a world where diversity is acknowledged rhetorically, but where communicative practices become increasingly standardised. The risk, then, is that the very tools that promise to democratise language education might also erode the pluralism they are meant to sustain. This is one of the issues we have been grappling with in the AI Lang project, where colleagues and I are exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping the linguistic landscape of education. Our concern is precisely this paradox: that tools designed to open up communication may, at the same time, narrow the space for linguistic diversity.

This paradox casts a shadow over symbolic events such as the European Day of Languages. For all their value in raising awareness, how can we prevent them from becoming commemorations of quaint linguistic curiosities, while our daily AI-mediated practices converge on English?

Languages, narratives of unity and hidden richness

Finally, there’s the question of framing. I understand why the narrative of European unity can be usefully advanced by marking a European Day of Languages. But as a person frequently invited in school fêtes where diversity is simplistically marked with English, French and German flags, while our children who speak Urdu, Arabic and Kurdish⁵ are denied visibility, I am very aware how easy it is to construct an image of Europe as a sealed linguistic container, comprising only the official languages of a handful of nation-states. Against this idealised image, migrant and diasporic communities are continually reshaping our linguistic landscapes. When we restrict our imagination to “European” languages, in the simplistic way sometimes promoted by Modern Foreign Languages departments at schools, we risk drawing boundaries that exclude precisely those voices that make contemporary Europe what it is.

In Greek usage at least, we often conflate the term “European” with “desirably foreign”, in ways that privilege ‘high-status’ foreign languages at the expense of local linguistic diversity. But let us not forget that there are at least seven non-Greek heritage languages in use in Greece, including a whistling language, and that sign languages are part of our heritage too. Again, there is a danger, here, of constructing an imagined European linguistic landscape with languages neatly confined to the official repertoires of nation-states, while erasing the everyday realities of diasporic, minority and non-standard varieties. Such framings risk turning Europe into a linguistic museum —tidy, orderly, and exclusive— rather than celebrating it as the messy, dynamic, and deeply plural space that it truly is.

If we truly wish to celebrate languages, we need to celebrate all the languages that are lived and spoken in Europe, whether or not they fit neatly into a map or a policy framework. We need to remember that it is a European Day of Languages, not a Day of European Languages.

A closing reflection

The European Day of Languages remains an opportunity to affirm the importance of linguistic diversity. But perhaps it is also an opportunity to shift from celebration to reflection. Celebrating languages must mean more than posters and slogans. It must mean:

• Sustaining languages in curricula and communities.
• Recognising diversity as part of democratic practice, not just as a slogan.
• Engaging critically with technology, to ensure that new tools expand, rather than diminish, our linguistic repertoire.
• Broadening our vision to include all the languages that people bring into our classrooms and societies.

If we can do that, then the European Day of Languages is not just a reminder of what we once had, but a commitment to the kind of multilingual, democratic, and inclusive Europe we still want to build.

If you are a teacher or researcher, perhaps this is a good moment to ask: what small step can you take to sustain the languages that surround your classrooms and communities?

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Footnotes

1. This was one of the first blog posts I ever made in this space. Just like cooking, blogging takes some time to master. ↩︎
2. Schwarzl, L., Vetter, E. & Janík, M. (2019). Schools as linguistic space: Multilingual realities at schools in Vienna and Brno. In A. Kostoulas (Ed.), Challenging boundaries in language education (pp. 211-228). Springer. ↩︎
3. Unless, of course, the ‘other’ language happened to be a major European language. Apparently, whatever effects the teachers in question had in mind seemed to be associated exclusively with ‘low prestige’ languages. ↩︎
4. Holborow, M. (2015). Language and neoliberalism. Routledge. ↩︎
5. And the language of our northern neighbours, but I am not interested in committing professional suicide by writing them out while working for the Greek state. ↩︎

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