Regional language

A regional language is a language spoken in a part of a country - it may be a small area, a federal state or province, or a wider area.

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Definition in international law

For the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages:

"regional or minority languages" means languages that are:
  1. traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State's population; and
  2. different from the official language(s) of that State

Influence of number of speakers

There are many cases when a regional language can claim greater numbers of speakers than certain languages which happen to be official languages of sovereign states. For example, Catalan (a regional language of Spain and France, albeit official in Andorra) has more speakers than Finnish or Danish. Cantonese has more than 60 million local and overseas speakers, as a regional language of Guangdong.

Relationship with official languages

In some cases, a regional language may be closely related to the state's main language or official language. For example:

In other cases, a regional language may be very different from the state's main language or official language. For example:

Official languages as regional languages

An official language of a state may also be spoken as a regional language in a region of a neighbouring state. For example:

See also

et:Regionaalkeel fr:Langue régionale kw:Yeth ranndiryel nl:Streektaal ro:Limba regională

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