Multilingualism is one of Europe’s defining features and core values. However, managing multilingualism and linguistic diversity has always been a challenging task. Often, multilingualism is mistakenly considered to generate confusion in societies or to hinder intercomprehension, thus neglecting the cultural richness it represents and the role it plays in the maintenance of cultural heritage, in social cohesion, and in the articulation of common projects such as CIVIS. Today, the loss of languages is a fact throughout Europe, a situation that particularly affects heritage languages which, like Catalan, are not the official language of a nation-state. In part, this is so because, regardless of their size – Catalan, for instance, has around 10 million speakers – these languages lack any presence in the formal spheres of Europe. Although significant progress has been made, for example, with the official status of Irish Gaelic in the European Parliament, there is still a long way for Europe to move towards full recognition and acceptance of its multilingualism. 

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Bridging language diversity: a place for Catalan – News – CIVIS – A European Civic University