European Charter

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a Council of Europe treaty. You can find out about it here and through the links below.

Latest News
The committee of experts third report on the situation of minority languages in the UK has just been published. The committee notes "positive developments" for the Scots language and states: "apart from in the field of media, Scots now benefits of public recognition and respect."

The committee makes no official recommendation on the language but says:

"efforts are needed to encourage and sustain Scots as a community language and to support and create conditions for Scots-speakers to value and use their language, and especially strengthen the position of Scots within existing language communities."

Read the press release here.

Read the report here. Scots is mentioned in paragraphs 32, 37, 52-55, 66-69, 83-88, 100-102, 112, 130 and 133 in chapters 1-3; paragraph I in chapter 4; and in the comments from the Scottish Government on pages 63 and 64.

About the Charter
The Charter was drawn up in 1992 to protect and promote regional or minority languages in Europe and give speakers of these languages the chance to use them in private and public life. The UK Government signed the Charter in 2000 and ratified it in 2001 in respect of Welsh in Wales, Scots and Gaelic in Scotland and Ulster Scots and Irish in Northern Ireland. Manx Gaelic and Cornish were added later. On account of devolution, the Scottish Government is in charge of measures for Scots and Gaelic.

What’s a “regional or minority language”?
The Charter defines “regional or minority languages” as languages that are traditionally used within a certain territory of a state by a group of nationals of that state that is numerically smaller than the rest of the state’s population. In addition, these languages are different from the official language(s) of the state and do not include dialects of the official language(s) or the languages of migrants.

Such languages are sometimes called “lesser-used languages” or, in the Scots language community, “wee leids”.

What does the Charter do?
Part II of the Charter sets out the general principles and objectives that Governments are to pursue in respect of regional or minority languages. It applies to all the languages in the list above, including Scots. Part III—measures to promote the use of regional or minority languages—applies to Welsh, Gaelic and Irish but not to Scots or the other languages in the list.

Every two years, the Government must report to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on what it is doing to comply with the Charter. A Committee of Independent Experts examines these reports and makes its own report to the Committee of Ministers. The Committee of Ministers decides whether to make any recommendations to the Government.

Scots language activists are still trying to get the Government to give Scots “part III recognition”—that is, to sign up to taking measures to promote the use of Scots under the Charter .

Links
The Scottish Government’s pages about the Charter are at: http://tinyurl.com/6mdnh5

The Council of Europe’s detailed website about the Charter is at: http://tinyurl.com/5sb4as

The text of the Charter can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/663oey

The European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages: http://www.eblul.org/

Eurolang: news that matters to Europe's minority languages: http://www.eurolang.net/