An autonomous community is an area in Spain that enjoys limited political and administrative autonomy. They were created in accordance with the Spanish constitution of 1978 to guarantee limited autonomy of the nationalities and regions that comprise the Spanish nation. Spain has 17 autonomous communities and many of these have additional official languages next to the official state language Castillian ¹⁾.

A European wide human rights organisation with 47 European states asmember. The Council of Europe drafts conventions describing measures that members can take to protect human rights, and urges its members to ratify these conventions. It also determines whether its members comply with these conventions by sending delegates to members states every few years.

Convenant drafted by the Council of Europe offering protection for regional or minority languages. The Charter essentially is a list measures that Council members states can take to protect regional and minority languages within their territory, organised in Part II and Part III.

• View the text of the Charter here.
• For an overview of which language is protected by which Charter measurements, look here.

If a minority language is mentioned under Part II of the Charter it enjoys the “basic” protection that the Charter has to offer.

If a minority language is mentioned under Part III of the Charter it enjoys “additional” protection: the host country of this language has committed itself to additional measures to protect this language. The country has to apply a minimum of 35 (sub-)paragraphs from Part III, including at least three (3) from Article 8 on Education.

ISO 639-3 is an international standard to represent names of languages, using three‐letter codes. The standard was developed by SIL International.

A language that may be used for official purposes, such as in government, in court, etc. An official language is bound to a certain political territory or unit (for example: nation state, federal state, province, municipality, etc).

For Example: In the kingdom of the Netherlands, Dutch is the official (state) language. However, within the province of Fryslân, Frisian is a second official language. This means that within Fryslân, both Dutch and Frisian can be used for government, court, etc, whereas the rest of the Netherlands permits only Dutch.

After the signature of a treaty, a state may ratify a treaty. The state is bound to the treaty and agrees to comply to and to implement the provisions of the treaty. For the Council of Europe, the states that have ratified a treaty agree to periodic reports on the execution of the treaty.

Defined in the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages as languages 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; they are different from the official language(s) of that state, and they include neither dialects of the official language(s) of the state nor the languages of migrants.

A state can become a party of the treaty by signing it. As a party, a state cannot interfere with the purpose of the treaty.

If a minority language has a standardized orthography, it means that the speakers are in agreement about how the language should be written: which spelling should be used. The authority to determine the spelling can lie with a designated language institute.

A treaty is “an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation”²⁾

A convention, agreement, charter, code, framework convention, or outline convention are forms of a treaty.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is an international organisation with 193 member states and 11 associate members. It aims “to build peace through international cooperation in Education, the Sciences and Culture”³⁾. Since 2018, the USA is no longer a member of UNESCO.

Established in October 24, 1945, the United Nations (UN) is an international organisation with 193 member states. It aims are “peace and security, climate change, sustainable development, human rights, disarmament, terrorism, humanitarian and health emergencies, gender equality, governance, food production, and more”⁴⁾. The UN declared 2019 as The Year of Indigenous Languages, see IY2019.