Talk:List of endangered languages in Europe

Verify and add
** Istro-Romanian language|Istro-romanian, Istria Croatia]]. 500 speakers
 * European Union
 * Cornish language|Cornish (United Kingdom). Despite becoming extinct for roughly a century, a revival in 20th century has led to new speakers.
 * Low German (Low Saxon) (Germany and the Netherlands). In decline
 * Griko (south Italian Greek) (Italy). Rapidly in decline
 * Italkian (Judeo-Italian) (Italy). Possibly extinct
 * Kashubian language|Kashubian (Pomeranian) (Poland). Rapidly in decline
 * Karaim language|Karaim
 * Leonese (Spain). Rapidly in decline
 * Livonian language|Livonian ( Estonia  and  Latvia ).  Approximately 35 speakers
 * Manx (Isle of Man). Speakership previously dropped to only as a second language, attempts at revival have restored small native speakership
 * Molise Slavic (Italy). Rapidly in decline
 * Occitan (France). In decline
 * Sami languages, (Scandinavia). Some have fewer than 100 speakers
 * Saterland Frisian language|Seeltersk (Germany). Most speakers elderly, signs of revival
 * Tsakonian language (Greece). Only 300 speakers
 * West Flemish (France, Belgium) definitively if not severely endangered in France
 * Võro (Estonia). Fewer than 100 speakers. Most speakers elderly, signs of revival.
 * Wymysorys (Poland).  Fewer than 100 speakers
 * Outside of the European Union
 * Insular Norman ( Jèrriais, Dgèrnésiais and Sercquiais), (Channel Islands). Rapidly in decline; fewer than 5,000 speakers (Sercquiais has less than 20 fluent speakers).
 * Krimchak language|Krimchak (Judeo-Crimean Tatar)
 * Votian,  [Russia] .  20 speakers
 * Ling.Nut (WP:3IAR) 12:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

In order to avoid WP:SYN, I suggest we base this directly on the "Red Book" classification. --dab (𒁳) 16:28, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * How is SYN related? I don't see any positions being advanced... Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 16:32, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

NW caucasian languages?
Where are those? All of them are endangered. They are almost dead in their homelands, and rapidly dying among diaspora. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.100.96.203 (talk) 16:34, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Table -- System?
Why is the table of languages not systematised, either by alphabetic order or by the estimated number of native spekaers remaining?

This looks very hap-hazard, like a patchwork. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.245.0.120 (talk) 01:20, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's why it's sortable. if you don't like it, then sofixit. Ling.Nut3 (talk) 15:19, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

What about Upper and Lower Sorbian? I believe Upper Sorbian is at least vulnerable and Lower Sorbian is definitelly endangered. It would be appropriate to add these languages to list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.176.255.56 (talk) 13:48, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Definitions of the four levels of endangerment
I don't see the categories "vulnerable", "definitely endangered", etc. defined in the source as they are in this article. Nor are they in the UNESCO FAQ, which in fact specifically states that they cannot be defined by one factor alone. The 2003 paper “Language Vitality and Endangerment” lists at least 9 factors which are considered relevant.

The reason I bring this up is that Irish is marked as "definitely endangered". This is defined in the article as "Children no longer learn the language as mother tongue in the home". While most Irish children don't learn it as a first language, and the language certainly has been in trouble in the past 100-200 years, some children still do learn the language as a mother tongue. This is true both in the dwindling Gaeltachtaí (Irish-speaking areas) and in a small few homes throughout the rest of the country, including cities. Vanhedrarn (talk) 02:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * For definition, go to http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas/. Above the right corner of the map, look for the list of statuses (vulnerable, definitely endangered, severely endangered,critically endangered & extinct). Just below that link is blue text that says more on vitality. Click that link; the text in this article pops up. Note that the pop up refers, additionally, to the nine facors that i think you are referring to... if you disagree with UNESCO's assessment, there is nothing to be done, since we rely on reliable sources. I searched for Irish on the site, and was returned this info:
 * Name of the language=Irish (en), irlandais (fr), irlandés (es), ирландский (ru)
 * Alternate names=Irish Gaelic
 * Vitality=Definitely endangered
 * Number of speakers=44000
 * In 2007. Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht affairs of Ireland: number of people living in primarily Irish-speaking areas; extinct as a first language in Northern Ireland; widely studied as a second language
 * Location(s)=four principal areas in the west, two in Donegal County, one each in Galway and Kerry counties, plus eight small pockets, also in Mayo, Cork, and Waterford counties; formerly also in Northern Ireland
 * Country or area=Ireland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
 * Coordinates=lat : 53.7876; long : -9.1845
 * Corresponding ISO 639-3 code(s)=gle
 * &bull; Serviceable&dagger;Villain 10:24, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Language or dialect
Many "languages" listed here are not separate language but just dialects.Indianguy2000 (talk) 19:01, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Which ones? It is often debatable which are.  Bevo74 (talk) 19:08, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

You included all the local dialects of northern Italy (dialects of Liguria, Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia and Romagna) which simply are local versions of standard Italian. You also included a "Southern Italian", which is unexisting. Italy speaks ONE language, Italian, in its standard version as established by Accademia della Crusca. Every place has local versions (always more ancient than the standard way, based on Tuscanian), both northern and souther regions, but they are not languages, and they have different versions also inside the same region. Something like "Emilian" doesn't exist, because every town in Emilia has a different dialect. "Southern Italian" is more absurd than that, because southern Italy is a half Italy, made with many regions with many different dialects. Italian is spoken as mother-tongue by 98% of population. The remaining 2% speaks 13 languages, whose 12 are officially recognized as minorities languages (French, Occitan, Franco-Provençal, German, Ladin, Sardinian, Friulan, Slovenian, Greek, Albanian, Serbian-Croatian, Catalan) and one (Romani) has no recognition. Friulan and Sardinian are officially qualified as "languages" in the International Code. Catalan and Franco-Provençal are basically dialects of Occitan, by they are officially classified as languages. The languages of Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina are ONE, usually called Serbian-Croatian in Italy, though the current nationalist governments of those countries are spreading the idea they are different (just alphabet is different for Croatia, using the Latin one, while other countries use the Cyrillic one). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.40.59.117 (talk) 14:05, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Repeats in chart
I cant help but notice that the Gagauz language occurs four times in the chart; Crimean Tatar language occurs three times; and Homshetsi dialect, Karaim language, Nogay language all occur twice, and there are others I didnt mention, these were just the ones I saw on first glance. My question is should they be merged together, or kept separate, they all link to the same articles. Abrahamic Faiths (talk) 03:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * They are all seperately considered by the UN, so this list should reflect that. R9tgokunks   ✡  03:16, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

major update to list page
I'll be starting a major update to this list page. Some info may be temporarily shuffled aside while I'm working on the page. Don't worry, it's in the history, and I'll retrieve it eventually. • Serviceable†Villain 10:22, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Misc. data from previous version
verify and reinsert misc. data from previous version of this page;.

No entry for the United Kingdom
User Lingzhi. Did a mega edit on 23 April 2015, converting this article from one list into a series of list, one per country. In doing so, the first edit: |10:25, 23 April 2015 omitted the United Kingdom, and the UK has been missing from this article ever since. I came here to see how Welsh and Scottish Gaelic are classified, but they aren't here! TiffaF (talk) 15:44, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the mistake. Fixed it, look again. Will tidy up later... &bull; Lingzhi&diams;(talk) 17:01, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

List seems not really restricted to Europe?
Should the article title be changed, or the list edited to remove non-European places/languages?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:09, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, upon further reflection, it does seem that all the countries are at least a little bit in what a wide definition of "Europe" would include. So maybe it's fine.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:11, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Indeed, all listed countries belong at least partially to Europe. In the case of Kazakhstan it is just a tiny fraction (5.4%) and one might wonder whether Dungan was ever spoken in the East-European part of Kazakhstan. The Dungan community appears to reside in the border region to Kyrgyzstan which is far away from Kazakhstan's European corner. --AFBorchert (talk) 20:34, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Alemannic / improper sourcing
Alemmanic is listed for the respective countries, but improperly sourced. Someone sourced it with the UNESCO report, and it is not mentioned in there. Can someone please find a true source for this? R9tgokunks  ✡  22:39, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Nevermind. I answered my own question. It was added to the list by UNESCO in July 2017:  R9tgokunks   ✡  00:23, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

fYRoM

 * IMHO, your argument about official UN terminology is not valid. For one thing, that would require to use "Republic of Moldova" instead of just "Moldova" and "Russian Federation" instead of plain "Russia". More to the point, your edit summary This article uses the official UN terminology as it is a UN publication is a fallacy. "This article" is not a UN publication, it is a Wikipedia article with UN sources. Wikipedia articles follow Wikipedia rules. There exists a specific guideline concerning how to describe the country Macedonia. If you can point out another Wikipedia guideline/rule that tells us to do different with UN-related articles, please quote it. It would also be relevant for other articles, like List of countries by population (United Nations) to give an example. As far as I can see, the only thing to discuss here would be if we should use the name "Republic of Macedonia" or just "Macedonia". I would go for the last solution, since there is no risk of misunderstanding. --T*U (talk) 07:29, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I see now that "Republic of Moldova" is used instead of just "Moldova", except in the section heading. Consistence would place Moldova at "R" in the alphabetic order. Anyway, my main point still stands. --T*U (talk) 07:07, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I think we should use the teminology used on the website and the publication, so chaning Moldova and keeping the original "FYRoM" Is what I support. It's more consistent with how the article is sourced and what is in the sources. -  R9tgokunks   ⭕  17:12, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I think we should is hardly a valid argument against Wikipedia guidelines. Please see WP:MOSMAC, especially the introduction and the section "Other articles". Unless you can come up with any policy-based arguments supporting your view, the fYRoM formula has to go. Since there is no risk of confusion with any other Macedonia, we should use plain M for "Macedonia", not R for "Republic of Macedonia" and certainly not T for "The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". --T*U (talk) 08:12, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * User R9tgokunks has stated that I've already said my opinion at the talk page for the article. I take that to mean that they do not wish to continue any discussion about this. This leaves me with a dilemma. If I do nothing, this article will IMHO be in blatant breach of WP:MOSMAC. If I repeat the edit they reverted, I may be accused of edit warring, which I do not want to be associated with. The obvious option is to discuss, but there is no-one to discuss with. Even if there is no active discussion, there is a stagnant disagreement, so I will ask for a third opinion in order to be able to move on. --T*U (talk) 08:50, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

About your Third Opinion request: The request made at Third Opinion has been removed (i.e. declined). Like all other moderated content dispute resolution venues at Wikipedia, Third Opinion requires thorough talk page discussion before seeking assistance. I would ordinarily recommend that you consider the recommendations which are made at WP:DISCFAIL, but since R9tgokunks has already made it clear that he does not wish to discuss this dispute, I would suggest that you either:
 * Go ahead and use DISCFAIL, but skip steps 4-7; or
 * File a request for comments on the question since RFC's do not require as much advance discussion as do moderated dispute resolution.

You could do both, but if you do then do them one at a time in the order listed. Please note that this advice is not intended to imply that either party in this dispute is right or wrong, it's merely advice on how to proceed mechanically in this particular situation. — TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 16:10, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your advice. I think that an RfC may be the best solution, since that (hopefully) will bring more editors to the discussion. Regards! --T*U (talk) 16:50, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Implausible information: Low Saxon
If these classifications are taken from the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, I'm loath to change them based on my own interpretation of what studies I can find, but Low Saxon in Germany and the Netherlands being only "vulnerable" (spoken by most children) is a manifest fiction.

According to Geert Driessen's sample, in the Netherlands in 2011 it was spoken by 15% of parents among themselves and 1% of children among themselves, which corresponds best to Severely endangered - "language is spoken by grandparents and older generations; while the parent generation may understand it, they do not speak it to children or among themselves".

Taking into consideration that the kind of Low Saxon still being used is going towards "regiolectic" standard language with Low Saxon features, it has aspects of ''Critically endangered - "the youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently".

Ni'jluuseger (talk) 05:39, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Is the romani language endangered?
Hi! This is mostly personal curiosity, but I also couldn't see any sources for that. At any rate I find it very strange, even if some arguably responsible authority sais it is endangered. Personally I wouldn't even considered it vulnerable. I know for a fact that, most, basically all roma speak romani in my country. Children or adults. In fact some don't speak another language, the official one here or english. Perhaps it is specific to my community, but I trully can not think of one person I know, that is roma and doesn't speek romani.

I am trully surprised of this listing, even if technically somebody responsible classified it so. It is like being christian all your live, following all the tennets, and suddenly you wake up one day and somebody tells you you are actually muslim. It is just odd... 90.154.131.183 (talk) 11:05, 1 December 2021 (UTC)