National languageA national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the territory of a country may be referred to informally or designated in legislation as national languages of the country. National languages are mentioned in over 150 world constitutions. C.M.B.
Language revitalizationLanguage revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, or governments. Some argue for a distinction between language revival (the resurrection of an extinct language with no existing native speakers) and language revitalization (the rescue of a "dying" language).
European Charter for Regional or Minority LanguagesThe 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. However, the charter does not provide any criterion or definition for an idiom to be a minority or a regional language, and the classification stays in the hands of the national state.
Regional languageA regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area. Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, "regional or minority languages" means languages that are: traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State's population and different from the official language(s) of that State Recognition of regional or minority languages must not be confused with recognition as an official language.
Official languageAn official language is a language having certain rights to be used in defined situations. These rights can be created in written form or by historic usage. 178 countries recognize an official language, 101 of them recognizing more than one. The government of Italy made Italian official only in 1999, and some nations (such as the United States, Mexico and Australia) have never declared de jure official languages at the national level. Other nations have declared non-indigenous official languages.
Endangered languageAn endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead language". If no one can speak the language at all, it becomes an "extinct language". A dead language may still be studied through recordings or writings, but it is still dead or extinct unless there are fluent speakers.
Cherokee languageCherokee or Tsalagi (Tsalagi Gawonihisdi, dʒalaˈɡî ɡawónihisˈdî) is an endangered-to-moribund Iroquoian language and the native language of the Cherokee people. Ethnologue states that there were 1,520 Cherokee speakers out of 376,000 Cherokee in 2018, while a tally by the three Cherokee tribes in 2019 recorded ~2,100 speakers. The number of speakers is in decline. About eight fluent speakers die each month, and only a handful of people under the age of 40 are fluent.
AustriaAustria (Österreich), formally the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich), is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine provinces, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous city and province. Austria is bordered by Germany to the northwest, Czechia to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The country occupies an area of and has a population of 9 million.
Albanian languageAlbanian (endonym: shqipja ʃcipja or gjuha shqipe ˈɟuha ˈʃcipe) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that language family. It is the descendant of a Paleo-Balkan language. Albanian is the official language of Albania and Kosovo, and a co-official language in North Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as a recognized minority language of Italy, Croatia, Romania and Serbia. It is also spoken in Greece and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Europe and Oceania.
Minority groupThe term 'minority group' has different usages, depending on the context. According to its common usage, the term minority group can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes within a population: i.e. a group in society with the least number of individuals, or less than half, is a 'minority’. Usually a minority group is disempowered relative to the majority, and that characteristic lends itself to different applications of the term minority.
Corsican languageCorsican (corsu ˈkorsu, ˈkɔrsu; full name: lingua corsa ˈliŋɡwa ˈɡorsa, ˈliŋɡwa ˈɡɔrsa) is a Romance language constituted by the continuum of the Italo-Dalmatian dialects spoken on the Mediterranean island of Corsica (France) and on the northern end of the island of Sardinia (Italy). Corsican is related to the Tuscan varieties from the Italian peninsula, and therefore also to the Florentine-based standard Italian.
Language deathIn linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers, when it becomes known as an extinct language. A related term is linguicide, the death of a language from natural or political causes, and, rarely, glottophagy, the absorption or replacement of a minor language by a major language.
Rusyn languageRusyn (ˈruːsᵻn; русиньскый язык; руски язик) is an East Slavic language spoken by Rusyns in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, and written in the Cyrillic script. Within the community, the language is also referred to by the older folk term, rusnac'kyj jazyk, or simply referred to as speaking our way (по-нашому). The majority of speakers live in an area known as Carpathian Ruthenia that spans from Transcarpathia, westward into eastern Slovakia and south-east Poland.
Language educationLanguage education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language education: communicative competencies, proficiencies, cross-cultural experiences, and multiple literacies. Increasing globalization has created a great need for people in the workforce who can communicate in multiple languages.
ItalianizationItalianization (italianizzazione italjaniddzatˈtsjoːne; talijanizacija; italianisation; poitaljančevanje; Italianisierung; Italopoíisi) is the spread of Italian culture, language and identity by way of integration or assimilation. It is also known for a process organized by the Kingdom of Italy to force cultural and ethnic assimilation of the native populations living, primarily, in the former Austro-Hungarian territories that were transferred to Italy after World War I in exchange for Italy having joined the Triple Entente in 1915; this process was mainly conducted during the period of Fascist rule between 1922 and 1943.
CanadaCanada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's second-largest country by total area, with the world's longest coastline. Its border with the United States is the world's longest international land border. The country is characterized by a wide range of both meteorologic and geological regions. It is sparsely inhabited, with the vast majority residing south of the 55th parallel in urban areas.
CorsicaCorsica (ˈkɔrsɪkə , Upper ˈkorsiɡa, Southern ˈkɔrsika, ˈkɔrsika; Corse kɔʁs; Còrsega) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of the French mainland, west of the Italian Peninsula and immediately north of the Italian island of Sardinia, which is the land mass nearest to it. A single chain of mountains makes up two-thirds of the island. , it had a population of 351,255. The island is a territorial collectivity of France.
Manx languageManx (Gaelg or Gailck, pronounced ɡilɡ, geːlɡ or gilk), also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Gaelic language of the insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. Manx is the historical language of the Manx people. Although only few children native to the Isle of Man speak Manx as a first language, there has been a steady increase in the number of speakers since the death of Ned Maddrell in 1974. He was considered to be the last speaker to grow up in a Manx-speaking community environment.
Sardinian languageSardinian or Sard (sardu ˈsaɾdu, limba sarda ˈlimba ˈzaɾda or lìngua sarda ˈliŋɡwa ˈzaɾda) is a Romance language spoken by the Sardinians on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia. Many Romance linguists consider it the language that, together with Italian, is the closest to Latin among all its genealogical descendants. However, it has also incorporated elements of a Pre-Latin (mostly Paleo-Sardinian and, to a much lesser degree, Punic) substratum, as well as a Byzantine Greek, Catalan, Castilian, and Italian superstratum.
Dutch languageDutch (Nederlands ˈneːdərlɑnts), also known as Netherlandic or Netherlandish, is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German and English. Afrikaans is a separate but somewhat mutually intelligible daughter language spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia, evolving from the Cape Dutch dialects of Southern Africa.
