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Official,
Minority, and Autonomous Regional Languages of Europe
Note: this article
lists the official and minority languages/ethnic identities
of European countries. It does NOT refer to non-European minority
languages or populations, like Arabic for Arabs or Urdu for
Pakistanis. Instead, it lists distinct social groups
in Europe with different languages and sub-national affiliations
struggling for autonomy.
Countries without any minority
languages are NOT LISTED.
This
article on the European Heritage Library analyzes the
many independence-seeking and unrecognized nations of Europe.
This
website analyzes many minority languages of "native,"
non-immigrant Muslim communities in Europe, including white
Europeans who were forcibly or voluntarily converted to Islam
centuries ago.
This
website rallies for political recognition of native European
minority language groups.
Shortcut: Germany • United
Kingdom • France • Italy
• Switzerland • Belgium
• Netherlands • Sweden,
Norway, Finland • Romania
• Moldova • Russia
• Estonia, Latvia • Slovenia
• Hungary • Czech
Republic • Greece •
Albania • Macedonia
• Serbia • Bosnia
• Croatia
 Germany
Official Languages
German only. "High German" dialect is official
in Germany, whilst Low German ultimately evolved into Dutch
and Luxemburgish.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
None. Small dialect differences among Alemanni Germans
in the west, Bavarians in the south, and Low German in the
northwest, but all view themselves as the same ethnic identity
affiliation as the rest of Germany.
 United
Kingdom
Official Languages
English, Welsh.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
The UK has several Celtic minority languages, although
all these communities also speak English. Cornish is spoken
in Cornwall, Scots Gaelic and Scots in Scotland (the latter
almost identical to English), Manx in the Isle of Man, and
a few academic speakers of Old English (Anglo-Saxon). A composite
language derived from Norwegian and English is spoken in the
Shetland Islands of Scotland, harking back to the Viking period.
There has been increasing interest in preserving the dying
Celtic languages on the frontier, particularly Manx, which
is often reported to have only a half-dozen speakers still
alive.
 Spain
Official Languages
Castilian Spanish, Galician (Galego), Basque (Euskara),
Catalan.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Andalusian, Galician, Basque, Catalan.
Spain has tremendously autonomous regional provinces due primarily
to three reasons: 1) the presence of long-standing nations
that were subsumed into Spain with the marriage of Isabella
to Ferdinand; 2) the historical preference of the Spanish
government for a universal obedience to Catholicism rather
than to Seville (and Castilian culture); 3) political and
regional infighting during the Carlist Wars, the Spanish Civil
War against the far-left, and the unrest under Franco.
Each of Spain's autonomous
regions consistently struggle for greater autonomy, and in
some cases total independence. Basques have been willing to
kill civilians in the interests of freedom. Galician (Galego),
spoken in the northwest, is embraced by a community that considers
itself completely different from the rest of Spain. They claim
to descend from Celts, ostensibly the ancient Celtiberians
who settled in France and Spain during the Roman period. Their
language is almost identical to Castilian, but their culture
is rather unique. Catalan is spoken in the northeast, and
Basque in the far north. Despite their political disputes,
all of these languages (excluding Basque) are incredibly similar.
Basque, however, is among the most unique languages in the
world. Andalusian is a dialect spoken in the southern dry
regions in another autonomous region. Although almost identical
to Castilian, it retains more Arabic loanwords due to the
region's history of foreign Islamic conquest and occupation.
Its culture and architecture are tremendously different from
the rest of Spain. All regional and minority languages are
protected by the Spanish government since the end of Franco's
Castilian-centric and ultra-conservative Catholic dictatorship,
although Castilian is compulsory and official for all regions.
 France
Official Languages
French only.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Provençal, Breton, Basque, Catalan, Corsican, Alsatian.
France, like Spain, has a number of regional dialects. However,
none rallies for full autonomy or independence like Spain's
minority communities do. Provence, in the south, has its own
dialect called Provençal. Breton (Brezh) is spoken in the
northwest region of Brittany by an ethnic group that is not
French at all, but is an ancient Celtic population that settled
after their expulsion from Britain (hence Brittany) by the
Germanic Anglo-Saxon English-speakers. Basque is spoken in
the Basque region that straddles Spain and France. The Basques
do not commit as much violence against civilians in France
as they do in Spain because they are given more recognition
and less denial of sovereignty than they are in Spain. Corsican
is a dialectic mixture of French and Italian, since the region
was part of Piedmonte before it was transferred to France.
The only sizable population that obstreperously denies a French
national identity are the Germans who speak Alsatian (a dialect
of German) in Elsaß-Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine) in the far
east. The region was long part of Germany and populated almost
entirely by ethnic Germans until it was seized by France after
the 30-Years' War, again by the Second Reich in the Franco-Prussian
War of 1870, and again by the Allies after World Wars I and
II.
 Italy
Official Languages
Italian only.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Sicilian, Sardinian, Venetian, Modern Lombard, Tirolian
German, Napolitano, Florentine dialects, Albanian.
Italy has a unique situation.
It has, overall, no regions calling for independence. All
view themselves as entirely ethnic Italian. However, the process
of Italian unification, as well as the relative failure of
Mussolini to promote a pan-ethnic Italian racial unity, encouraged
ethnic Italians to look after their own regional affairs.
As a result, many parties exist across Italy calling for regional
autonomy, especially Lega Nord. Some parties in Venice, however,
do call for full independence. Lombard, spoken in Lombardy,
originally referred to the ancient Germanic Lombard tribe
who gave their name to the region with their large kingdom
ultimately conquered by the German Emperor Charlemagne. Today,
Lombard refers to a dialect of Italian (not German) spoken
by ethnic Italians living there. The only region of Italy
that refuses to call itself Italian is South Tirol. Populated
almost entirely by Germans, the region was taken from Austria
after World War I, returned casually to the Third Reich by
Adolf Hitler, and again given to Italy after World War II.
Its German population greatly calls for autonomy and even
total schism. The Albanian immigrant population (the Abareshe)
speak the northern tribal Gheg dialect of Albanian.
 Switzerland
Official Languages
German, Italian, French, Romansch.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Romansch
Switzerland was historically
a Germanic nation. It was formed when Germans created a forest
confederacy with the aim of repelling Habsburg conquest in
the 13th century. It remained as such for many centuries thereafter
until intensive French settlement during the religious and
Napoleonic Wars led to a very problematic political conflict.
The politically-decentralized and cooperative system of Switzerland
(the Tagsatzung) encouraged the minorities to create an ethnic-based
confederacy. The Germans, the largest population, control
their region (by far the wealthiest), whilst the French and
Italians control theirs. All three are official. Romansch
is another small dialect formed out of French that is also
given recognition. It was created due to their remote distance
from the French homeland.
 Belgium
Official Languages
French (Walloon) and Dutch (Flemish)
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Belgium was never a nation until 1820, nor were there
any "Belgians." What is now Belgium was merely a
number of very wealthy city-states populated by ethnically
Germanic people originally connected with the First Reich
(Holy Roman Empire of Germany), and later disputed and swapped
between Burgundy, the Netherlands, France, Austria, and Spain.
After the Napoleonic French conquests, the French minority
was excited into national rebellion. Rather than be returned
to the Netherlands, a new nation was formed largely by French
minority interests as well as a marginal desire by the Dutch
majority there to avoid the Protestant rule of the Netherlands.
Despite being ruled by an ethnically German king, Belgium
has been and is thus a French-dominated nation in terms of
its language and culture. This is a major source of anger
for the Dutch majority.
Belgium is among the most
unstable and confused, yet wealthiest nations of the world.
Its two major populations greatly dislike each other to varying
degrees, with many cooperating out of national mutual prosperity
on one side and others on the other willing to break completely
from the nation. The government of Belgium has been completely
broken for years, and Flanders (the Dutch region) is dominated
by the autonomy-seeking, ethnic nationalist far-right.
The northern half, Flanders,
is populated by Dutch people, who speak a dialect of Dutch
called Flemish. The south, Wallonia, is populated by French
Walloons. Both regions are incredibly autonomous. The centre,
Brussels, is a separate state populated by both. The two regions
have had such difficulty working together that many outside
and within have often feared a total division of the nation.
However, the fact that the two intensely opposed cultures
have been able to create one of the wealthiest states on earth
discourages most from calling for such a drastic action as
the destruction of the nation.
 Netherlands
Official Languages
Dutch only.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
None. There are many dialectical minorities, but all
acknowledge their membership in the Dutch nation. The only
major community is the Frisians, who speak an ancient Germanic
language that is extremely similar to Dutch and related to
English. Some polemics rally for independence. Historically,
the interest was far greater in the past, especially during
World War II when many Frisian pan-Germanic nationalists called
for union with Germany or independence. The interest has declined
for the most part ever since.
   Finland,
Sweden, Norway
Official Languages
Only Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian in their respective
nations. Danish official in Danish Greenland.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Saami.
All three Scandinavian states have a minority in the far northern
regions of Finnmark and Lappland called the Saami or Saapmi.
Related to the Finns, they retain their own traditional culture
due to their lack of assimilation into the evolving modern
Scandinavian Lutheran culture of their Swedish rulers. Therefore,
they are often described as a window into the old Finnish
nomadic culture of reindeer herders and shamans. Sweden offers
the most support for the Saami even though few Saami live
in Sweden. Norway is increasingly doing more for their northern
minority, whilst Finland is criticized for not doing enough
to protect their "dying culture."
 Romania
Official Languages
Romanian only.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Gypsy (Roma), Hungarian, German, Aromanian, Bulgarian.
Romania has a difficult ethnic and linguistic situation. The
western half of Romania, Transylvania, has experienced a changing
national affiliation. Romanians will aver that it has always
been Romanian, Hungarians will assert their equivalent, and
some German nationalists theirs. It has historically been
attached to Hungary, but it had a significant Romanian (Vlach)
minority under a Hungarian majority. German settlers also
lived in what they called Siebenbürgen. After Hungary was
obliterated by the invading Muslim scourge, it transferred
to the Ottoman realm in part under Vlach freedom-seeking instigation.
After the Germans retrieved it into the Habsburg empire, it
was taken from a mutiliated Hungary after World War I and
given to Allied Romania. Hitler demanded that Romania, Hitler's
most loyal ally, return Transylvania to Axis Hungary. After
World War II, it returned to Romania under Soviet direction.
The dialect of "Aromanian"
is spoken in diaspora and in parts of Romania. It is often
described as a separate language, but more accurately refers
to the Romanian language with only slight dialect differences
due to their separation from an evolving standardized Romanian
language and their involvement with other language communities
abroad. They proudly identify themselves, for the most part,
as Vlachs (the same ethnicity as Romanians, so named after
the former Romanian kingdom of Vlachia/Wallachia).
Romanian is spoken by the
majority in Transylvania today, but Hungarian minorities remain
and absolutely refuse to speak the hated Romanian language.
German minorities do the same.
In the rest of Romania, the
bitterly hated Gypsies (Roma) speak their own language related
to those of North India. They are given no recognition or
protection by the government, and shockingly many Romanians
openly miss the days of Hitler and Antonescu for their efforts
to exterminate the Gypsies.
 Moldova
Official Languages
"Moldovan."
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Russian.
In Moldova, "Moldovan"
is spoken. It is literally identical to Romanian, although
they refuse to define themselves as part of Romania due to
their divergent history under Soviet control. In the eastern
breakaway state of Transnistria, Russian is spoken. This population,
unrecognized by all other nations except Russia (with casual
fawning by Belarus) affiliates with Communist rhetoric and
the Russian Motherland.
 Russia
Official Languages
Russian. Minority languages are official in provinces
only.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Over 20 languages and hundreds of dialects.
Russia as the largest nation
on earth has an incredible diversity in races and ethnic groups,
although the Slavs dominate all other groups. The Soviet policy
of supposed multi-ethnic celebration created a patchwork of
sub-provinces and autonomous regions for each race and region.
The post-Soviet Russian Federation largely retained this,
although it was reorganized. Today, Russians dominate most
of the whole massive nation. Russian is official and prevalent
in all sub-republics. There are several "Finnish republics"
for the Finnish minority, although in all but Karelija (in
the northwest) the Finns are often less than 10% of the population.
The Mongol and Inuit regions, as well as those of ancient
Turkic and Tatar tribes, are given their own autonomy with
their own languages enjoying official status there. The Circassian
tribes of the far-south are also given their autonomy, including
Chechnya, Ingushetiya, and Dagestan. North Ossetia, populated
by ethnic Iranian Christians, speak a language related to
Farsi. War-torn South Ossetia and Abkhazia both were inherited
by Georgia after the Soviet collapse, and speak their own
dialects of Osset and Georgian, respectively. Yiddish was
once spoken in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the wastelands
of the far east, largely as an effort to purge them from their
disproportionate involvement in Communist politics that were
deemed inconvenient (see our exclusive EHL map below).
Click to enlarge our exclusive EHL map
  Estonia
and Latvia
Official Languages
Estonian and Russian in Estonia. Latvian, Semigallian,
Livonian, and Russian official in Latvia.
Both Estonia and Latvia have
problematic demographics. The Estonians are related to the
Finns, whilst the Latvians and Lithuanians have an unknown
origin. Many postulate that they are Slavic, others Sarmatian,
others entirely an independent group called the "Balts."
Their languages are not related to any other. Unlike Lithuania,
Estonia and Latvia have endured significant ethnic Russian
settlement during the periods of Russian imperial rule and
Soviet hegemony. In Latvia, natives are almost the minority.
In Estonia, Russians almost reach half of the population.
Each of these ethnic groups bitterly hate each other. Whilst
Estonians are more homogenous, Latvia has historically been
broken into tribes. Livonian, Semigallian, Lev, and Latvian
have all been debated as being either separate tribes or merely
dialects. The Latvian government, fearing a death of their
race, have done as much as possible to protect their dying
tribes, heritage, customs, languages, and birthrate. It has
had grim results. Estonia, with its smaller Slavic population
and quite auspicious economic ties with its Finnish brothers
to the north, has maintained a non-Slavic unique national
identity (as I saw myself). German was once spoken in Latvia
since the period of the Teutonic Order Monastic State, but
all ethnic German civilians were expelled from their homes
by the Soviets and forced back to Germany or abroad.
 Slovakia
Official Languages
Slovak.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Hungarian, Czech, Gypsy (Roma).
Slovakia, a brand-new nation compared with the rest of Europe,
broke off peacefully from its Czech partners less than two
decades ago. As a result, it offers significant recognition
to the Czech minority. Slovakia retains a large Hungarian
minority due to the fact that the region of Slovakia had been
tied to the throne of Hungary for nearly a thousand years.
Hungary's ancient kings were typically crowned in Preßburg
or Bratislava. Esztergom, on the border of Slovakia, barely
escaped being taken from Hungary and has arguably the greatest
treasures of the Hungarian people. The Slovaks and Hungarians
in Slovakia are often very bitter, and little is done to give
them recognition or autonomy. The Roma minority receives no
protection whatsoever, and is intensely reviled by most Slovaks
and especially Hungarians.
 Hungary
Official Languages
Hungarian.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Slovak, Roma (Gypsy).
Hungary was once one of the
largest nations of Europe, and included modern Slovakia, Croatia,
Transylvania, and more. As a result, Hungary has long had
many minority languages and identities. After World War I,
this massive nation was forcibly sheared to become one of
the smaller nations of Europe. As a result, most of the historic
language minorities in Hungary are now not part of Hungary.
Hungarian was and is spoken in Transylvania, but the region
was seized by the Allies at Trianon and Versailles and given
to Romania after World War I, and again after World War II
after Hitler demanded it to be transferred to Axis Hungary.
Slovaks are still a minority in Hungary, and there is an air
of mutual antipathy between the two that survives today. The
Roma (Gypsy) minority is intensely hated by the Hungarians,
and receives no protection.
 Czech
Republic
Official Languages
Czech.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Slovak, German.
The Czech Republic and Slovakia
split on friendly terms only two decades ago, and thus the
Slovak minority receives great protection and positive recognition.
The Moravian dialect of Czech, which some consider a separate
language, enjoys political autonomy but overall no lingustic
recognition. The large German civilian population of several
million was forcibly expelled from their homes after World
War II (as in the rest of Eastern Europe totalling more than
8,000,000), so German is only spoken by a tiny population.
The Benes Decrees, still in legal effect but not enforced
at all, denied Germans the right to own property.
 Greece
Official Languages
Greek only.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Albanian, Bulgarian.
Greece is a homogeneous nation,
although its conquests of the Albanian tribal buffer territory
after the Balkan Wars inherited a large Albanian minority
in South Epirus. Albanians form Greece's largest immigrant
community today. Albanian receives little linguistic recognition
by Greece. Bulgarian, spoken in southern Macedonia and Thrace,
also enjoys very little. The presence of the Albanian language
via immigration was initially rather acceptable, but has recently
been increasingly identified with crime, drug dealing, prostitution,
and lethargy at tax-payer expense. As a result, many Greeks
are reluctant to give this increasing population any legal
defense. Macedonian is also spoken by immigrants, and suffers
from similar stereotypes (real or imagined).
 Albania
Official Languages
Albanian (two dialects: Tosk and Gheg).
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Greek.
Albanian is one of the most
unique languages of Europe, with an uncertain origin. It has
two tribal dialects: Tosk in the south and Gheg in the north.
The Albanian immigrant population in Italy (the Abareshe)
speaks primarily Gheg. Greek has long been spoken by a dormant
minority, and still is spoken by ethnic Greek investors and
businessmen, although this was significant crushed during
Enver Hoxha's Communist regime's desire to "atheize"
the Greek-speaking Orthodox community.
 Macedonia
Official Languages
Macedonian.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Albanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Roma (Gypsy).
Macedonia has a difficult linguistic situation. Bulgarians
and Serbs have historically refused to acknowledge that Macedonia
exists or is even a separate language. Macedonians, who write
in Cyrillic like the Serbs, insist that they are their own
ethnicity. Their language is related very closely to Bulgarian
and Russian. The large Albanian population (over 30%), a source
of tremendous domestic tumult and violence, speaks Albanian
(primarily the tribal Tosk dialect), whilst the Gypsies speak
Roma. Bulgarian was compulsorily required during the period
of Axis Bulgarian rule, but the Bulgarian minority (or majority
in the eyes of Bulgarians) was greatly subsumed under the
"Macedonian" culture and language during the Yugoslav
period. Greek is also spoken in the south, although this is
an issue of intense dispute, since Greeks have historically
refused to recognize that this nation even exists due to its
claim that Alexander the Great -- Greece's cultural hero --
is not Greek, but Macedonian.
 Serbia
Official Languages
Serbian (Serbo-Croatian).
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Albanian, Hungarian, Bosnian, Croatian.
Serbia's difficult ethnic
problems are obvious and complicated. Today, Albanian is still
spoken in Serbia despite the forced seizure of Kosovo from
Serbia by the occupying US, UN, and NATO after the Yugoslav
Wars. Kosovo, still not recognized by most of the world, contains
most Albanian-speakers of the region, although many continue
to leave Kosovo for Serbia due to the unbearable poverty of
the region in comparison with the Serbian economy. The Hungarian
minority, quite large, occupies the northern region of Vojvodina.
Most of the Croatian population was expelled from Serbia,
but Croatian is still spoken ephemerally. Bosnian is still
heard in much of western Serbia.
 Bosnia
Official Languages
Bosnian, Serbian (Serbo-Croatian).
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Arabic, Croatian.
Bosnia, whose tragic history
of ethnic wars with Serbia is well-known, today is divided
into two regions. Republika Srpska in the east is populated
by Serbo-Croatian speakers, whilst the west (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
is populated by Bosnians. Most of the Croatian population
was expelled by the Serbs during the wars. The Serbs and their
language enjoy tremendous autonomy to the point that they
almost are not even controlled by the Sarajevo government.
The two halves bitterly hate each other still today. According
to the intriguing book The Balkan Caliphate, coercion
and investment by Wahabbis of Saudi Arabia has created sizable
pockets of "Islamist" villages that wear Saudi-style
jalabas and speak Arabic in day-to-day conversion. The official
government stance of Bosnia has catered primarily to the Slavic
element and not the Islamic aspect, although Bosnian statesmen
appealed to Muslims to rally for independence via jihad during
the 1995 war. Such "Islamist" regions are given
no recognition today and are intensely scrutinized due to
their associations with terrorism.
 Croatia
Official Languages
Croatian.
Minority Languages/Social Identities
Serbian, Hungarian, Italian.
Croatian is only slightly
different from Bosnian and Serbian. "Serbo-Croatian,"
the lingua franca of Yugoslavia due to its overarching similarity,
intimates the culturally sensitive nature of the region. Croats
insist that their language and culture is unique, and have
historically claimed that Bosnian is a dialect of Croatian.
There was a huge Serbian and Bosnian minority in the region
due to the fact that the whole area was merged when the Croats
allied with Hitler's Germany under Ante Pavelic and also during
the period of shared statehood under Yugoslavia. During the
Yugoslav Wars, Serbian as a language was virtually extinguished.
"Republic of Srbija Krajina," the autonomous region
of the Serbs in Croatia, was dissolved when nearly all the
Serbs there were executed or fled from Croatian nationalist
militias. Nearly all Croats in Serbia, too, were expelled
to Croatia.
Today, Croatian is almost
universally dominant, although Hungarian, a few Serbian, and
even recent Italian minorities speak their respective languages.
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