Europeans speak a wide variety of languages. The principal linguistic groups are

• the Slavic, which includes Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Polish, Slovenian, Macedonian, and Serbo-Croatian;
• the Germanic, which includes English, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic; and the
• Romance, which includes Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian.

These languages have basically the same origins and are grouped as Indo-European languages.

Other Indo-European languages include Greek, Albanian, and Celtic languages such as Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton. In addition to the Indo-European language speakers, the continent has groups of people who speak Finno-Ugric languages, such as Finnish, Hungarian, and Saami, as well as speakers of the Basque and Turkish languages.

Many Europeans use English as a second language.