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 parts of the world), 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.