Posted by Пудкарпатиць on May 12, 2003 at 14:37:27:
In Reply to: What is a "minority language"?? posted by Andriy on May 12, 2003 at 08:24:36:
: From Ukranews comment: "In particular, the Charter obliges the countries which ratified it, to protect languages under threat of extinction. In particular, the draft law provides for the protection of the Belarusian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Greek, Jewish, Crimean-Tatar, Moldovan, German, Polish, Russian, Romanian, Slovak and Hungarian languages."
: Well, what is a "minority language"? Is it the language of a neighbouring country? NO! Because in the neighbouring country, the MAJORITY of people are already speaking that language! On the contrary, if there are small ethnic groups WITHOUT a country where their ethnic language is spoken as official, then THIS IS a minority language.
: Therefore, in the list of languages in the lobbied bill, only Belarussian (de facto close to extinction), Jewish (Jiddish only), Gagauz and Crimean Tatar qualify as minority languages!!!
: Russian, "Moldovan", Romanian, Slovak, Polish, etc. are ALREADY spoken by majority in their respective nation states.
But Rusyn is not, and fits your criteria perfectly. Would you defend the rights of Rusyn as a minority language in Ukraine?