Regional_and_minority_Languages_in_Europe
The various regional and minority languages in Europe encompass four categories:
- The language of a community in one single country, where the language community is not the linguistic majority, e.g. Sorbian in Germany, or Welsh in the United Kingdom
- The language of a community in two or more countries, in neither of which they are the linguistic majority, e.g. Basque in Spain and France, Sámi in Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden
- The language of a community who are a linguistic minority in one country, even though they are the majority in a different country, e.g. Danish in Germany, Finnish in Sweden, or Swedish in Finland
- Languages without any fixed territory, that are traditionally spoken in one or more countries, but which cannot be assorted to one specific region, e.g. the languages of Sinti and Roma, the Yiddish language, the Yenish language as well as Plautdietsch
Dialects and languages of immigrants are not included in the official definition of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
The European Union regards Luxembourgish as a minority language, too, as it is not an official language of the EU. Through June 13, 2005, the Irish language also had this status.
In recent years, some countries of the EU have begun assorting the status as a minority language to various sign languages.
