Ranking Languages in the European Union

Abstract

This article presents a stylized framework to rank languages in multilingual societies. We consider several ranking methods, reflecting principles such as minimal disenfranchisement, communicative benefits, or utilitarianism, as well as game-theory-based rankings referring to the Shapley Value. We use data from the Special Eurobarometer survey in order to apply these methods to rank languages within the European Union. Although the methods largely differ on their normative grounds, they lead to very close results.