European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

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Contents 1 Languages protected under the Charter 1.1 Notes 2 See also 3 External links

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. It only applies to languages traditionally used by the nationals of the State Parties (thus excluding languages used by recent immigrants from other states), which significantly differ from the majority or official language (thus excluding what the state party wishes to consider as mere local dialects of the official or majority language) and which either have a territorial basis (and are therefore traditionally spoken by populations of regions or areas within the State) or are used by linguistic minorities within the State as a whole (thereby including such languages as Yiddish and Romani, which are used over a wide geographic area).

Languages which are official within regions or provinces or federal units within a State (for example Catalan in Spain) are not classified as official languages of the State and may therefore benefit from the Charter. On the other hand, the Republic of Ireland has not been able to sign the Charter on behalf of the Irish language (although a minority language) as it is defined as the first official language of the state. The United Kingdom has, though, ratified the Charter in respect of (among other languages) Irish in Northern Ireland. France, although a signatory, has been constitutionally blocked from ratifying the Charter in respect of the languages of France.

The charter provides a large number of different actions state parties can take to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages. There are two levels of protection—all signatories must apply the lower level of protection to qualifying languages; signatories may further declare that a qualifying language or languages will benefit from the higher level of protection which lists a range of actions from which states must agree to undertake at least 35.

[edit] Languages protected under the Charter

The countries which have ratified the the Charter and the languages for which the ratification was made are the following:

Armenia ratification: 25 January 2002 Assyrian Yezidi Greek Russian Kurdish  Austria ratification: 28 June 2001[1] Croatian of Burgenland Slovene (in Carinthia and Styria) Hungarian (in Burgenland and Vienna) Czech (in Vienna) Slovak (in Vienna) Romani (in Burgenland)  Croatia ratification: 5 November 1997 Italian Serbian Hungarian Czech Slovak Ruthenian Ukrainian  Cyprus ratification: 26 August 2002 Armenian  Czech Republic ratification: 15 November 2006 Slovak (parts II and III, across the whole territory) Polish (part II; and part III in Moravia-Silesia, in districts Frydek-Místek and Karviná) German (part II only) Romani (part II only)  Denmark ratification: 8 September 2000[2] German (in Southern Jutland)  Finland ratification: 9 November 1994 Sami Swedish (co-official language)  Germany ratification: 16 September 1998[3] Danish (in Schleswig-Holstein) Upper Sorbian (in the Free State of Saxony) Lower Sorbian (in Brandenburg) North Frisian (in Schleswig-Holstein) Saterland Frisian (in Lower Saxony) Romany (across Germany) Low German (in Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein)  Hungary ratification: 26 April 1995 Croatian German Romanian Serbian Slovak Slovene  Liechtenstein ratification: 18 November 1997 No regional or minority languages  Luxembourg ratification: 22 June 2005 (to be confirmed)[4]  Montenegro ratification: 15 February 2006 Albanian Romani

Netherlands ratification: 2 May 1996 Frisian (in Friesland) Limburgish (across the Netherlands) Low Saxon (across the Netherlands) Romani (across the Netherlands) Yiddish (across the Netherlands)  Norway ratification: 10 November 1993 Sami  Serbia ratification: 15 February 2006 Albanian Bosnian Bulgarian Hungarian Romani Romanian Ruthenian Slovakian Ukrainian Croatian  Slovakia ratification: 5 September 2001 Bulgarian Croatian Czech German Hungarian Polish Romani Ruthenian Ukrainian  Slovenia ratification: 4 October 2000 Hungarian Italian Romani  Spain ratification: 9 April 2001 Basque (co-official in the Basque Country and Navarre) Catalan (co-official in the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia) Galician (co-official in Galicia)  Sweden ratification: 9 February 2000 Finnish Meänkieli Sami Romani Chib Yiddish  Switzerland ratification: 23 December 1997 Italian Romansh  Ukraine ratification: 19 September 2005 (To be confirmed)[5]  United Kingdom ratification : 27/3/2001 Cornish Scots in Scotland and Northern Ireland Scottish Gaelic language Welsh Irish Manx (ratified on behalf of Manx government)

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Austria has ratified the Charter for each language in respect of specific Länder
2. ^ Notes Verbales accompanying the Danish ratification specified that, whilst the Charter was not going to be ratified in respect of the two languages, Faroese and Greenlandic are each official in their respective territories
3. ^ Germany has ratified the Charter for each language in respect of specific Länder
4. ^ Luxembourg is not listed on the Council of Europe site
5. ^ As of March 2007, Ukraine's entry on the on the Council of Europe site does not list the languages in respect of which the Republic of Ukraine has ratified the Charter.

[edit] See also

• European languages
• Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
• Languages of the European Union
• Language policy in France
• Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights

[edit] External links

• European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages page (Legal Affairs, Council of Europe)
• More information