Minority languages? or propaganda?

I have seen this map produced by a german political group (the green I think, under the name of European greens) and produced and diffused by the European union parliament, under the official purpose of promoting regional languages.

http://www.voxlatina.com/telecharger/Europe-vue-par-Allemagne.jpg
http://www.communautarisme.net/docs/carte-europe-regions-Verts-ALE-2004.jpg


I seen some version of these maps, from 1997 until now. The number of regions considered by this organism as "minorities" as been increasing each year.

If we believe this map, it would suppose that France is just northern France (excepted historic Britanny(non-breton speaking Britany, the part of it where it have never been spoken, is included), Alsace and historic french Flanders. If we believe it it would mean that southern French are not French-speakers, or that the language there is occitan and that's it.
It suppose that Spain is just Castilla - that Galicians and Catalans are not Spanish anymore, etc...

But is that really speaking about minoritary languages and defending them as the official puropse seem to claim? Or is it spreading in the deep interior of the European union organs the weel known German idea of a so-called, self-called "ethnic" drawings of the borders?

I say that because there is one point which is VERY shoking, is that this "ethnic vision" is not only inacurate (90% of the inhabitants of the so-called Occitania have never spoke such occitan language... and are as much proudly french (maybe more) than their northerner counterparts) but it is applied to all Europe.... Except to Germany (and Italy also). The German speaking nations doesn't appear with distinctions as it should be between swiss German, High German, Low German, etc. ...
The same for Italy, as if all Italy was having the same regional languages... While we all know that much more Italians speak regional languages than French people. But on the map, no Sicilian, No Piemontese, no Venitian?? The same for Germany.

As if the objective was to Claim that Italy and Germany were two "ethnically" united nations, while the older nations of Spain, France or United Kingdom weren't... It seems heavily like a propaganda to put a united Germany, much bigger than the German state itself at the center of Europe and to divide all the other nations in a plurarity of micro-nations...

How can the EU can follow such an obvious and dangerous "ethnic" propaganda? making believing it is for saving languages?

Have you ever noticed that in these ethnic maps of Europe, all nations appear considerably reduced or splited into several different nations aside from Germany, which becomes even bigger? Just think a bit...

Yes, this is precisely the point. if it was not labbelled with European Union flag we could think it was coming from a nazi-based vision of Europe...

Strange enough... Germany, since the reunification claims to be recognised as THE main country of central Europe - and in Europe in general... while it is not central Europe geographically speaking without including in it the german speaking nation outside of Germany itself... Switzerland and Austria mainly...

Concerning France, I am shocked to realize that official documents of the EU shoose to consider that I am not French... and that my Alsacian grandfather who never spoke german (and fought them during the war) is German...

I'm personally tired of the exaggerated promotion which receive some these "minority" languages . This is what Wall Street Journal says about one of them, the basque language and the low pace ethnic cleaning behind its promotion . I agree with WSJ's point of view:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119429568940282944.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone

Probably you didn't look that well at the map. There are some small minorities in Germany as well. On the other hand, everybody knows that in Germany there has never been linguistic minorities like those of Spain, France or Great Britain, I'm referring to Basque, Breton. Welsh, Scottish, Catalan.

" I'm personally tired of the exaggerated promotion which receive some these "minority" languages "


Yes, but if it stil is based upon regions were are REALLY spoken these languages it could quite rightfully used to describe a different reality of this or that region. But when a "minority" regional label is put over a region where the spoken language is not different form the rest of the nation and apply to it a different label it became a "ethnic" (or I sould say even "racist" statement: the idea that the people of that region has a different identity in itself, even if the its people have the citizenship and the culture of the rest of the country. Ethnic balkanization...

The idea that intrasequely southern French are not true french (becaus of what, their origins, DNA??) is really a very dangerous idea and doesn't not corespond to any reality.

Yes, the Danish minority in Germany, but it is so tiny that it is hardly noticeable, nothing comparable to one half of France, haha.

" Probably you didn't look that well at the map. There are some small minorities in Germany as well."

As the colors let it clearly supposing these "minorities" are just all under a same color. Based on color and size of letter, it means the language you'll hear spoken in switzerland is supposed to be almost the same than the one in northern Germany... while the language spoken in southern France (sorry, occitania, this is not supposed to be in France anymore on this map!!) is presented as a completly different one than French. Everyone who knows Germany, France and switzerland knows that it is the inverse : the spoken language in the streets of Paris and Marseille is the same, while in Zurich and Berlin it is pretty much different..

"Yes, but if it stil is based upon regions were are REALLY spoken these languages it could quite rightfully used to describe a different reality of this or that region."

The map is not accurate even in that respect, because some zones are colored as minority languages speaking regions while that languages are not really spoken. For example, in the southern Spanish Navarre, the basque language is not spoken at all, but according to that map it is. This map is an oversimplification but curiously it is skewed in favor of regional languages instead of the "national" ones.

those maps are political purpose, quite German-centred oriented. It is not speaking of language as it claim to be. Breton in Brittany has never been spoken in most of the area "brittany" (which does not even correspond to the administrative region) - it is purely the use of an "ethnic" (unprecise term) argument for a political goal.

It's not a secret that Germany had and still has an ethinc vision of Europe and they make these maps in collaboration with some separatist movements in many european countries. I hope that Turkish becomes strong in Germany in order to enrich that ethnic vision.

Beaucoup de remarques très justes ont été dites sur ces cartes.

http://www.voxlatina.com/telecharger/Europe-vue-par-Allemagne.jpg

Cette carte est assez comique : la Bretagne apparaît sous la forme du duché historique, qui n'a que très peu de rapport avec la réalité linguistiqe → partition ouest/est entre gallo (langue d'Oïl) & breton (langue celte).

L'« Occitanie », telle qu'elle nous est montrée, ferait frémir d'horreur plus d'un Gascon et pas mal de Provençaux.

Le domaine arpitan est carrément englobé dans le domaine d'Oïl : exit le francoprovençal...

Comme par magie, l'Italie se révèle être un territoire linguistiquement homogène : ni les Lombards ni les Piedmontais d'Italie n'ont droit aux mêmes égards qu'aux occitanophones de France → les langues lombarde & piedmontaise n'intéressent visiblement pas les auteurs de la carte...

"les langues lombarde & piedmontaise "
Aucun linguiste sérieux n'a jamais reconnu le lombarde et le piedmontais comme de véritables langues. On les a toujours réputés comme des dialectes septentrionels de l'italien. En Italie seulement le sarde et des langues minoritaires telles que le croate, l'albanais et le grec ont le status de langues à part. La situation française, anglaise ou espagnole est bien différente. Le basque, le breton ou le gallais ont une origine tout à fait différente par rapport à leur langue nationale dominante.

Venetian and Italian are considerably more different than Occitan with respect to French is. Just because Venetian has no official status does not mean that it is not a language. Serious linguists consider Venetian a Gallo-Italic language while Italian belongs to a different branch of the Romance languages. Piedmontese, Lombardic and other northern "dialects" also belong to the Gallo-Italic family.

Venetian a Gallo-Italic

Venetian is not at all a Gallo-Italic language!

Venetian doesn't have any gallic or celtic features