EUROPEAN MINORITY LANGUAGES

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EUROPEAN MINORITY LANGUAGES
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DEFINITION OF A MINORITY LANGUAGE

• A minority language is a language spoken by a
  minority of the population of a country. It must
  be traditionally used by nationals group
  numerically smaller than the rest of the State's
  population and must be different from the
  official languages of that State.

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ESTONIAN LANGUAGE

• Estonian is the official language of Estonia
• Is spoken by about 1.1 million people in
  Estonia and tens of thousands in various emigre
  communities

Estonianeesti keel Estonianeesti keel
Spoken in Estonia 
Region Northern Europe
Total speakers 1.1 million
Language family Uralic Finno-Ugric  Finno-Lappic   Baltic-Finnic    Estonian 
Official status Official status
Official language in  European Union Estonia
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HISTORY

• From the 13th century to 1918 by Denmark,
  Germany, Sweden anf Russia resulted few early
  written literary works in Estonian language
• After the Estonian War of Indenpendence Estonian
  language became the state language of the newly
  independent country

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LITERATURE

• The oldest records of written Estonian date from
  the 13th century. Originates Livoniae in
  Chronicle of Henry of Livonia contains Estonian
  place names, words and fragments of sentences
• In modern times Jaan Kross and Jaan Laplinski
  remain as two of Estonia's best known and most
  translated writers.

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Classification

• Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the
  Finno-Ugric languages
• Is one of the few languages of Europe that is not
  Indo-European
• It has been influenced by German, Russian,
  Swedish and Latvian

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Alphabet

• Estonian employs the Latin alphabet, in addition
  to which the Estonian alphabet contains letters
  š, ž, ä, ö, ü, and õ.

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IRISH

• Is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European
  language family, originating in Ireland and
  historically spoken by the Irish
• Irish is also an officially recognised minority
  language in Northern Ireland
• Is the national and first official language of
  the Republic of Ireland and it is an official
  language of the European Union.

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• Native speakers range from 20,000 to 50,000
  people
• 0.8 aged three and over speak Irish and
  approximately 60 speak Irish on a daily basis.

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LADIN

• Is a Rhaeto-Romance language spoken in the
  Dolomite mountains in Italy, between the regions
  of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Veneto
• It is officially recognized in Italy and has some
  official rights in the region of Trentino while
  it does not have official status in the province
  of Belluno

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• It is spoken in
• the following municipalities of the Province of
  Bolzano-Bozen
• Urtijëi
• Santa Crestina Gherdëina
• Sëlva
• Badia
• Corvara
• La Val
• San Martin de Tor
• Mareo
• the following municipalities of the Province of
  Trento (Val di Fassa)
• Canazei (Ladin Cianacei)
• Campitello di Fassa (Ladin Ciampedèl)
• Mazzin (Ladin Mazin)
• Pozza di Fassa (Ladin Poza)
• Vigo di Fassa (Ladin Vich)
• Soraga (Ladin Soraga- or- Sorega)
• Moena (Ladin Moena)

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• It has more or less 30.000 total speakers and its
  language family is the Indo- European one, in
  which is related with Italic, Romance,
  Italo-Western, Western, Gallo-Iberian,
  Gallo-Romance, Gallo-Rhaetian and Rhaetian.