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Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Protection: The Case of Regional and Minority Languages

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This chapter explores the relationship between European efforts at protecting regional and minority languages, with a particular focus on the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, on the one hand, and UNESCO endeavors at protecting intangible cultural heritage, with a special focus on the 2003 UNESCO Convention, on the other hand. The 2003 UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage is a product of decades of debates in the framework of UNESCO on how to improve the protection of the world’s cultural heritage against the onslaught of modernity and globalization. Shifting the perspective to the broad range of intangible cultural heritage produces a certain overlap with traditional undertakings for the protection and promotion of folkloristic practices and rituals and also with the safeguarding of threatened languages. Languages as such are not explicitly covered by the 2003 UNESCO Convention, but the definition of “intangible cultural heritage” is so broad that threatened minority languages can be easily brought under the scope of application.

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