On September 26, we celebrate European Day of Languages. To recognize the day, European schools will host events and language contests celebrating multilingualism and plurilingualism. There are 24 official languages in the European Union; people use over 200 languages across Europe.

The language that you spoke as a child with your parents is your mother tongue or your first language.

The first language that you learned after your mother tongue is your second language.

The language that you are learning now is your target language.

The language that you studied in school is a learned language.

The language that you picked up naturally is an acquired language.

The language that you studied in school that is not spoken in your home country is a foreign language.

The language that is used broadly in an area between people groups is a regional language.

The language that is commonly used between speakers whose native languages are different is a lingua franca.

You are multilingual if you understand and speak more than one language.

You are bilingual if you understand and speak two languages.

You are trilingual if you understand and speak three languages.

You are plurilingual if you can easily switch between multiple languages.

You are a hyperpolyglot if you understand and speak more than 12 languages.

You are experiencing positive transfer if you can use your first language to understand a grammatical structure or vocabulary in a target language.

You are edging on polyglossia or omnilingualism if you can understand several languages at a very complex level,

You speak a dialect, if you can speak a language particular to a specific region of the country,

You speak a pidgin, if you can speak a grammatically simplified form of a language used between two people groups.

Join us to celebrate the wide diversity and power of languages!

Author: Robin Gingerich, Ph.D., MA TESOL Program Director at LCC International University.