Minority language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a country. Such people are termed "linguistic minorities".

In Europe and in some other parts of the world, like in Canada, minority languages are often defined by legislation or constitutional documents and afforded some form of official support. The term, for example, appears in the Constitution of Canada in the heading above section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees minority language educational rights.

Some minority languages are simultaneously also official languages, including the Irish language (Gaelic) in the Republic of Ireland. Likewise, some national languages are often considered minority languages, insofar as they are the national language of a stateless nation.

[edit] Controversy

Minority languages are occasionally marginalised within nations for a number of reasons. These include the small number of speakers, the decline in the number of speakers, and their occasional consideration as uncultured, primitive, or simple dialects when compared to the dominant language. They are also occasionally viewed as a threat, for example the recent resurgence of Celtic languages in the UK (Irish and Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Cornish), and even Scots, are viewed by some to be support for separatism, thus as a threat to the political establishment. Immigrant minority languages are often also seen as a threat and as indicative of the non-integration of these communities. Both of these perceived threats are based on the notion of the exclusion of the majority language speakers. Often this is added to by political systems by not providing support (such as education and policing) in these languages.

Signed languages are often not recognized as true natural languages even though they are supported by extensive research. In the United States, for example, American Sign Language is the most used minority language yet almost the only minority language which lacks official government recognition.

Auxiliary languages have also struggled for recognition, perhaps partly because they are used primarily as second languages and have few native speakers. To date, the auxiliary language Interlingua has been most successsful in obtaining official recognition. For example, the Interlingua organization Union Mundial pro Interlingua (UMI) has consultative status with UNESCO and has been influential in the work of the International Organization for Standardization.

Interlingua is often a target of disinformation by supporters of some other auxiliary languages, which seem to being losing ground. Factually incorrect information frequently has been introduced into Wikipedia articles about Interlingua and into their talk pages, and incorrect information can be found elsewhere on the Internet. Sound resources on Interlingua's history and development, however, are increasingly available as well. Among them are an Interlingua history site^[1] and a full-text version of the Interlingua-English Dictionary.^[2]