Languages Spoken in 15th-Century Europe

Europe in the 1400s was a linguistic mosaic. Scholars estimate ~100 distinct languages were spoken across the continent, belonging to these major families:

• Romance: Old French, Occitan, Catalan, Old Spanish, Portuguese, Italian dialects (Tuscan, Venetian, Sicilian), Romanian, Dalmatian.
• Germanic: Middle High German dialects, Middle Dutch, Middle Low German, Old Frisian, Old English/early Middle English, Old Norse (Icelandic/Norwegian), Gutnish.
• Slavic: Old East Slavic, Old Czech, Old Polish, Old Church Slavonic, Slovene, Serbian/Croatian/Bulgarian precursors.
• Celtic: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Middle Welsh, Breton, Cornish (dying).
• Baltic: Old Lithuanian, Old Latvian, Old Prussian (extinct).
• Uralic: Finnish, Karelian, Estonian, Hungarian, Sami languages, Mordvin, Mari, Komi.
• Isolates/Other: Basque (Vasconic), Albanian, Greek (Medieval).

Caveat: "Language" vs. "dialect" is political. Mutual intelligibility varied. The printing press (c. 1450) and rising state chancelleries began standardizing written forms—precursors to modern national languages.