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:
- The Frisian languages, regional languages of the Netherlands and Germany, belong to the Germanic family.
- The Gutnish language, a regional language spoken in Gotland and related to the Swedish language.
- Regional languages of Han Chinese, belong to the same family of Chinese languages as Mandarin. Some regional languages of minority groups such as Amdo Tibetan language have regional official status.
- Wu, in Shanghai, southern Jiangsu, Zhejiang and eastern Jiangxi.
- Cantonese, in Guangdong, parts of Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong and Macau.
- Hakka, in parts of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Taiwan
- Min, in Fujian, Taiwan, eastern Guangdong and Hainan.
- Xiang, in Hunan.
- Gan, in Jiangxi.
- Kashubian, a regional language of Poland.
- Limburgish, a regional language in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, has around one million speakers and is closely related to Luxembourgish, Rhinelandic and Ripuarian.
- Low German (also referred to as Low Saxon), an officially recognized regional language in Germany and the Netherlands, the direct descendant of Old Saxon. Sometimes (e.g. by nds and nds-nl Wikipedia) considered two languages divided by today’s Netherlands–German border on account of Dutch influences in the west and German influences in the east; closely related to Frisian, more distantly to German.
- Prekmurian, considered by linguist a dialect of Slovene, is used as a regional language in the Prekmurje region of Slovenia.
- Scots, a regional language of Scotland and Ireland, belongs to the same family of West Germanic languages as English.
- Regional languages of Spain and Portugal:
- Aranese, Catalan, and Galician are each, in the regions where they are the autochthonous language, co-official in status with Castilian (Spanish) which is official everywhere in the Kingdom of Spain.
- Asturian and Leonese are recognized (but unofficial) in Asturias and Castile and León (Spain), while Mirandese is co-official with Portuguese in Miranda do Douro (Portugal). These Romance languages are classified under the term Astur-Leonese languages. Astur-Leonese is closely related to both Castilian and Galician, which itself is most closely related to Portuguese. Catalan is an Occitano-Romance language.
- Occitan, most widely spoken across the Pyrenees in France and Catalonia, together with Catalan, forms a subgroup of Romance languages linguistically intermediate between French and the Ibero-Romance languages of Spain and Portugal. Aranese is a subdialect of Gascon
- Võro, a regional language of Estonia, belongs to the same family of Finnic languages as Estonian.
- Walloon, a regional language of France and Belgium, belongs to the same family of Oïl languages as French.
In other cases, a regional language may be very different from the state's main language or official language. For example:
- Basque, a regional language in Spain and France, is a language isolate.
- Breton is a regional Celtic language spoken in Brittany, part of France.
- Cornish, is a non-living regional Celtic language originating in Cornwall, England.
- Corsican, a regional language in France (Corsica) closely related to Tuscan.
- Gagauz, a regional Turkic language used in Moldova.
- Livonian, a regional language of the Finnic family spoken in Latvia.
- Resian, a dialect of Slovene, is a regional language spoken in eastern Italy.
- Sardinian, a regional language in Italy (Sardinia) which is considered to be the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of archaic phonetic and morphosyntactic phenomena.
- Scottish Gaelic is a regional Celtic language spoken in the highlands of Scotland, part of the United Kingdom.
- Sorbian, a regional language of Germany, is a Slavic language.
- Welsh is a regional Celtic language spoken in Wales, part of the United Kingdom. In November 2010 the Welsh Assembly passed a Measure that made Welsh and English the official languages of Wales.
Read more about this topic: Regional Language
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