Introduction

The presence of a separate chapter on European immigrant languages in this volume should be seen as a measure of the ever-growing importance of Europe in Britain's affairs. In the absence, however, of any directly relevant Census information or comprehensive surveys on European languages in the UK, the brief to write a chapter on these languages posed several challenges. Two significant issues are, firstly, the use and significance of European languages among the existing population, and secondly the question of the – probably increasing – impact of languages of European immigration on the domestic picture in the future. In the last part of the chapter, I briefly discuss some linguistic aspects of the European immigrant groups and in particular of one of the largest groups, the Greek Cypriots, so as to give an idea of the sociolinguistic developments which can occur over several generations in an immigrant setting.

Which Europe?

The issues mentioned above beg the preliminary question as to which languages should be counted as European, and therefore of the appropriate definition of Europe. The broadest definition one might take would be the Member States of the Council of Europe, numbering forty-three and spanning the continent from the North Cape to Gibraltar and from Ireland to Vladivostok.