Estonia > Võro language

Võro is a part of the Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages and is spoken by about 70,000 people in Estonia. The Võro language has all the typical characteristics of South Estonian and all the features distinguishing it from other Balto-Finnic languages. Officially it is considered a dialect of Estonian, since is the least influenced by standard Estonian and nowadays it has its own literary standard and speakers are seeking to have it recognised as a regional language of Estonia. The language went into decline in the late 19th century, but a revival started during the 1980s. Today Võro is taught in some schools; there is a Võro newspaper that is published twice a month, and some poems, plays and novels are also written in the language. Võro is a descendent of the old South Estonian language, which first appeared in writing in 1686 in a translation of the New Testament. Võro’s alphabet is the same as Estonian’s and Finnish’s and most letters denote the same sounds as in Estonian, with a few exceptions.

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Authors: Damianos Alexandridis and Michal Bankiewicz

France > Breton language

Breton is a Celtic language spoken in the region of lower Brittany in western France. While today one of the official regional languages recognized by the French state, Breton, alongside other regional languages in France, has experienced a fairly tumultuous history of linguistic suppression and been the victim of centralist national ideals which suppressed linguistic diversity in France following the French revolution. Recent language revitalization efforts have attempted to reverse the chain of events set in place by centuries of nationalist propaganda, however, these efforts have largely fallen short, and today Breton qualifies on a number of scales as an endangered language.

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Authors: Erin McInerney and Hanna Szczepanek

Norway/Sweden/Finland > Northern Saami language

Northern or North Sami (/ˈsɑːmi/) (davvisámegiella /ˈtav.viː.ˌsaː.me.ˌkie̯l.la/, Finnish: pohjoissaame /ˈpohjoi̯sˌsaːme/, Norwegian: nordsamisk, Swedish: nordsamiska; disapproved exonym Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The area where Northern Sami is spoken covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The number of Northern Sami speakers is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000. About 2,000 of these live in Finland and between 5,000 and 6,000 in Sweden. (Wikipedia)

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Authors: Thalia Primikyri and Karolina Schild

Germany > Croatian language

In Germany, Croatian is spoken by 0.04% of the general population. It is a language that is categorized in the Slavic genus and the Indo-European family. The macroarea where it is spoken is Eurasia and more specifically the countries: Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Germany.

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Authors: Marta Makarowicz and Panagiota Koudouni

Italy > Lombard language

Lombard is a language spoken by millions of speakers in Northern Italy and Southern Switzerland, including most of Lombardy and some areas of neighboring regions, notably the eastern side of Piedmont and the western side of Trentino, and in Switzerland in the cantons of Ticino and Graubünden. Within the Romance languages, they form part of the Gallo-romance group. Lombard dialects are also heard in Brazil (Santa Catarina). Lombard has 3.9 million native speakers. It is classified as a Gallo-Romance language.

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Authors: Batsiou Dafni and Bułhak Milena

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Luxembourg > Luxembourgish language

When analysing the linguistic landscape of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg it becomes visible that it does not feature minority languages in the correct sense of the term. Luxembourg uses French, German and Luxembourgish as official languages, and English, Portugese and Spanish are often spoken (Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, n.d). Additionally, Italian, Polish, Swedish, Finnish and Romanian are spoken in certain communities. While those languages count as minority languages in Luxembourg, they are however institutionalised and widely spoken official languages of other European countries. Therefore, they cannot be described as minority languages that are only spoken by a smaller and geographically restricted community. Instead, we are focusing on Luxembourgish. Although it is an institutionalised language generally spoken by the Luxembourg population, its use is geographically restricted to Luxembourg and thus a minor language when compared to its European counterparts.

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Authors: Zuzanna Witt i Sausmikat Caren

The Netherlands > West Frisian language

West Frisian – the most widely spoken language of all of the Frisian languages. It is spoken mostly in the province of Friesland (Fryslân) in the north of the Netherlands.

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Authors: Rafailia Poutachidou and Weronika Wylot

Norway/Sweden/Finland > Northern Saami language

Northern or North Sami (/ˈsɑːmi/) (davvisámegiella /ˈtav.viː.ˌsaː.me.ˌkie̯l.la/, Finnish: pohjoissaame /ˈpohjoi̯sˌsaːme/, Norwegian: nordsamisk, Swedish: nordsamiska; disapproved exonym Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The area where Northern Sami is spoken covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The number of Northern Sami speakers is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000. About 2,000 of these live in Finland and between 5,000 and 6,000 in Sweden. (Wikipedia)

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Authors: Thalia Primikyri and Karolina Schild

Poland > Kashubian language

Kashubian language belongs to the Slavic language group. It belongs to the Lechitic group and has long been developed under the influence of Pomeranian dialects. Nowadays, there are many dictionaries of Kashubian language, literature, TV and radio broadcasts. In addition, there are many dialects of the Kashubian language: their number reaches 76 dialects. Kashubian language has long been a controversial language. For many years, it could not have been decided whether it was a dialect of Polish or a separate language. Nowadays, Kashubian was recognized as an independent language. Moreover, it was given the status of Poland’s only regional language. Currently, it is used mainly for daily communication and is taught in schools as an additional language (around 6,000 students study it). Since 2005, it has been possible to take a graduation exam in Kashubian language.

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Authors: Olesia Plotianska and Rzepa Dawid

Portugal > Barranquenho language

Barranquenho is a recent Portuguese dialect, which is spoken in town Barrancos, where there live no more than 2.000 habitants. Barrancos is a small town of Portugal and it’s located near the borders of Spain. Barranquenho is a non official language of Portugal nor is recognized by the Portuguese government. It’s mixed by Spanish and Portuguese. More specifically, Barranquenho is influenced by the Portuguese language and Spanish dialects, which are spoken at the Spanish towns Extremadura and Andalucia because are located near the borders with Portugal.

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Authors: Konrad Szydzisz and Christine Vozika

Russian Federation > Yakut language

Yakut language is a language spoken in Russia. It is spoken by around half a million people who are the inhabitants of the region called Yakutia or Sakha. Moreover, it is considered to be an official language in Russia. Yakut belongs to Turkic language family. It is important to state that it has many borrowings from both Mongolian and Russian. The language is spoken in other parts of the world apart from Russia like Turkey. Yakut is written using Cyrillic script with additional 5 letters that are unique to the Yakut language. The main characteristics of Yakut language are vowel harmony and the quality of being agglutinative. Yakut language has 16 vowels half of which are rounded and the other half are unrounded.

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Authors: Janek Golinski and Evmorfia Chatzigeorgiou Georgiadou

Spain/France > Basque language

Basque (Euskara) is a language spoken mostly in the Basque Country (Euskal Herria) – a region located in the western Pyrenees which straddles the border between Spain and France. The region can be divided into three major sub-areas including the Autonomous Communities of the Basque Country and Navarre in Spain and the Northern Basque Country in France. These territories are home to nearly three million people, among whom are the Basques (Euskaldunak) – a group of people who have inhabited the land for several thousand years and have developed their own language (Basque), culture, and traditions

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Authors: Agnieszka Pludra and Evangelos Kamanatzis

Audio sample:

Hi! I am Javier. I was born and live today in the Basque country. The Basque language is called Euskara and it sounds as you hear. This recording is for my Greek friend Vangelis and his Polish partner Agnieszka for the project “Multilingual map of Europe”. I believe that Basque is a really old language and nobody knows its origin. I hope that you will like it. Bye!

Norway/Sweden/Finland > Northern Saami language

Northern or North Sami (/ˈsɑːmi/) (davvisámegiella /ˈtav.viː.ˌsaː.me.ˌkie̯l.la/, Finnish: pohjoissaame /ˈpohjoi̯sˌsaːme/, Norwegian: nordsamisk, Swedish: nordsamiska; disapproved exonym Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The area where Northern Sami is spoken covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The number of Northern Sami speakers is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000. About 2,000 of these live in Finland and between 5,000 and 6,000 in Sweden. (Wikipedia)

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Authors: Thalia Primikyri and Karolina Schild

Switzerland > Romansh language

Romansh is one of the minority languages spoken in Switzerland. It is also called German Rumantsch, Grishun, or Grisons. It is a Rhaeto-Romanic language, which has its roots in Latin and it is spoken widely in the canton of Graubünden. Only 0.5% of the population speaks Romansh. There are different kinds of Romansh, such as: Romansch (Surmeiran), Romansch (Scharans) and Romansch (Sursilvan). Sursilvan which is spoken in the western part of the canton is one of the most spoken variants. Romansh has been the official language of Switzerland since 1938. It also has the official status in the canton of the Grisons. It is also spoken in northern Italy.

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Authors: Julia Piotrzkowska and Katranitsas Dionysios

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UK > Welsh language

Welsh (Cymraeg [kəmˈraːɨɡ] (About this soundlisten) or y Gymraeg [ə ɡəmˈraːɨɡ]) is a Brittonic language of the Celtic language family that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argentina). Historically, it has also been known in English as “British”, “Cambrian”, “Cambric” and “Cymric”. According to the last Census in 2011, 562,016 (19.0%) of the population of Wales aged three and over were able to speak Welsh. As of December 2020, it is reported that 29.1% (883,600) of the population of Wales aged three or more are able to speak Welsh, with 16.3% (496,300) of the population reporting that they speak Welsh daily. (Wikipedia)

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Authors: Grivokostopoulou Anastasia and Karol Jakubik