For the first time in European law scholarship, the author provides an in-depth analysis of the actual use of multilingual interpretation of Community law in national courts. He has sifted from the (mostly recent) history of high (and some lower) courts in Germany, England, & Denmark some 186 judgements in which the courts diverged from reading the national language version in isolation by admitting one or more other language versions of a Community provision. In each instance he closely investigates: why and under what circumstances this initiative was taken; which and how many foreign language versions were used; in what way the national court gained knowledge of the meaning of the foreign language versions; and how the court acted when the meanings of the examined language versions deviated from each other. Denmark, England and Germany were chosen because they represent three of the classical Western legal families the Scandinavian (Nordic) law, the common law and the civil law traditions