Posted by Baltic Media Translation Services in Northern Europe

Languages of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Central and Eastern Europe, abbreviated CEE, is a generic term for the group of countries in Central Europe, Southeast Europe, Northern Europe, and Eastern Europe, usually meaning former communist states in Europe. It is in use after the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989–90. In scholarly literature the abbreviations CEE or CEEC are often used for this concept.

The term CEE includes all the Eastern bloc countries west of the post-World War II border with the former Soviet Union, the independent states in former Yugoslavia (which were not considered part of the Eastern bloc), and the three Baltic states –Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania – that chose not to join the CIS with the other 12 former republics of the USSR.

The transition countries in Europe are thus classified today into two political-economic entities: CEE and CIS. The CEE countries are further subdivided by their accession status to the European Union (EU): the eight first-wave accession countries that joined the EU on 1 May 2004 (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia), the two second-wave accession countries that joined on 1 January 2007 (Romania and Bulgaria) and the third-wave accession country that joined on 1 July 2013 (Croatia). According to the World Bank, "the transition is over" for the 10 countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. It can be also understood as all countries of the Eastern Bloc.

CEE includes the following former soviet republics and socialist countries, which extend east from the border of Germany and south from the Baltic Sea to the border with Greece:

· Estonia - member of the European Union and NATO

· Latvia - member of the European Union and NATO

· Lithuania - member of the European Union and NATO

· Germany (Eastern part) - member of the European Union and NATO

· Czech Republic - member of the European Union and NATO

· Slovakia - member of the European Union and NATO

· Hungary - member of the European Union and NATO

· Poland - member of the European Union and NATO

· Romania - member of the European Union and NATO

· Bulgaria - member of the European Union and NATO

· Slovenia - member of the European Union and NATO

· Croatia - member of the European Union and NATO

· Albania - member of NATO

· Bosnia-Herzegovina

· Kosovo

· Macedonia

· Montenegro - formal invitation to join NATO

· Serbia

Central Europe lies between Eastern and Western Europe.

The concept of Central Europe is based on a common historical, social and cultural identity.

Central Europe is going through a phase of "strategic awakening", with initiatives like the CEI, Centrope or V4. While the region's economy shows high disparities with regard to income,all Central European countries are listed by the Human Development Index as very highly developed.

The comprehension of the concept of Central Europe is an ongoing source of controversy, though the Visegrád Group constituents are almost always included as de facto C.E. countries. Although views on which countries belong to Central Europe are vastly varied, according to many sources (see section Current views on Central Europe) the region includes the states listed in the sections below.

· Austria

· Czech Republic

· Germany

· Hungary

· Poland

· Slovakia

· Slovenia (sometimes placed in Southeastern Europe)

· Switzerland

Depending on context, Central European countries are sometimes grouped as Eastern, Western European countries, collectively or individually but some place them in Eastern Europe instead:for instance Austria can be referred to as Central European, as well as Eastern European or Western European.

Other countries and regions

Some sources also add neighbouring countries for historical (the former Austro-Hungarian and German Empires, and modern Baltic states), based on geographical and/or cultural reasons:

· Croatia (alternatively placed in Southeastern Europe)

· Romania (Transylvania and Bukovina)

The Baltic states, geographically located in Northern Europe, have been considered part of Central Europe in the German tradition of the term, Mittleuropa.

Benelux countries are generally considered a part of Western Europe, rather than Central Europe. Nevertheless, they are occasionally mentioned in the Central European context due to cultural, historical and linguistic ties.

Languages

Languages taught as the first language in Central Europe are: Croatian, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak
and Slovenian.

The most popular language taught at schools in Central Europe as foreign languages are: English, French and German.

Proficiency in English is ranked as high or moderate, according to the EF English Proficiency Index:

· Slovenia (position 6)

· Luxembourg (position 8)

· Poland (position 9)

· Austria (position 10)

· Germany (position 11)

· Romania (position 16)

· Hungary (position 21)

· Czech Republic (position 18)

· Switzerland (position 19)

· Slovakia (position 25)

· Croatia (not ranked)

· Liechtenstein (not ranked)

Other languages, also popular (spoken by over 5% as a second language):

· Croatian in Slovenia (61%)

· Czech in Slovakia (82%)^[120]

· French in Romania (17%), Germany (14%) and Austria (11%)

· German in Slovenia (42%), Croatia (34%), Slovakia (22%), Poland (20%), Hungary (18%), the Czech Republic (15%) and Romania (5%)

· Hungarian in Romania (9%) and Slovakia (12%)

· Italian in Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (9%) and Romania (7%)

· Russian in Poland (28%), Slovakia (17%), the Czech Republic (13%) and Germany (6%)

· Polish in Slovakia (5%)

· Slovak in the Czech Republic (16%)

· Spanish in Romania (5%)

The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of approximately 500 million people mainly in North America, Oceania, Central Europe, Western and Northern Europe

The West Germanic branch includes the two most widely spoken Germanic languages: English, with approximately 360–400 million native speakers, and German, with over 100 million native speakers.

Other major West Germanic languages are Dutch with 23 million speakers, Low German with approximately 5 million in Germany and 1.7 million in the Netherlands, and Afrikaans, an offshoot of Dutch, with over 7.2 million.

The main North Germanic languages are Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese, which have a combined total of about 20 million speakers.

The East Germanic branch included Gothic, Burgundian, and Vandalic, all of which are now extinct. The last to die off was Crimean Gothic, spoken in the late 18th century in some isolated areas of Crimea.

The SIL Ethnologue lists 48 different living Germanic languages, of which 42 belong to the Western branch, and 6 to the Northern branch. The total number of Germanic languages through history is unknown, as some of them - especially East Germanic language -disappeared during or shortly after the Migration Period.

The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic, also known as Common Germanic, which was spoken in approximately the middle-1st millennium BC in Iron Age Scandinavia.

Proto-Germanic, along with all of its descendants, is characterized by a number of unique linguistic features, most famously the consonant change known as Grimm's law.

Early varieties of Germanic enter history with the Germanic tribes moving south from Scandinavia in the 2nd century BC, to settle in the area of today's northern Germany and southern Denmark.

Common Translation Agency

You have found a world-class translation company specialising in region-specific languages and offering translation services from and into Northern European languages.

However, other companies are specialised in translating, not only from regional or resident languages, but also within specific industries, like healthcare, legal, technical documents, websites and other such texts.

There are translation companies which are backed by global stock markets and various funds, with an annual turnover of hundreds of millions. Such as Transperfect, Semantix, Lionbridge, Welocalize, LanguageLine Solutions and other Top 100 companies. These Language Service Providers (LSP) are particularly important to medium-sized and small translation agencies, which tend to buy specialised language services from them. Some medium-sized translation agencies work only as providers to the Top 100, while also being on this list.

In order to receive a quotation for translation service from and into CEE languages, please contact us by using a free quotation form.

Source: Wikipedia.

Languages of Europe