European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
European Convention (ETS 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 mere local dialects of the official or majority language) and have a territorial basis (thus excluding such languages as
Yiddish and
Romany, which were used over a wide geographic area). The charter provides a large number of different actions state parties can take to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages, from which states must agree to undertake at least thirty-five.
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