This book portrays the multifaceted world of Europe's languages since the Bronze Age. The seven chapters respectively deal with: Europe's linguistic tower of Babel; the multiplicity and variety of languages and the development of a writing culture in ancient times; the fragmentation of the European linguistic world in the Middle ages; language, nationalism and their interrelationship in the modern age; national languages, language standardization and mass communication in modern times; and universal languages, the history of European integration and the language situation in the EC bureaucracy.