The words we use to make sense of the world do not mean the same thing to everyone. Their meanings shift across time, place, and context. Some concepts live in everyday speech; others emerge within specialised languages such as those of law or political theory—yet the boundary between the two is porous. Terms coined in expert debates often migrate into common usage, becoming part of collective identities and shaping how societies perceive themselves and others.

‘Nation’, ‘Border’, ‘Fascism’—these are not merely words, but ways to define belonging, frame threats, and mark out enemies. LEXI.ECO reveals how such terms evolve and collide across languages and histories. Named in tribute to Umberto Eco (1932–2016), who observed that ‘the language of Europe is translation’, the project explores not only translation in its literal sense, but also the social, semantic, and historical layers of each word.

Translation is more than a linguistic act: it is the pursuit of a shared intellectual space—one that sometimes exists and always remains to be built. By tracing the uses, misuses, and reinventions of key terms, LEXI.ECO fosters dialogue and mutual understanding, opening pathways toward a more connected European and global public sphere.

LEXI.ECO is an EU-funded initiative that brings together educators and researchers from Santiago de Compostela to Tartu, and from Lille to Lviv.