"evropuli qartia saqarTvelo "European Charter for Regional or ...

only deal with a language of a historical minority which could be presented
in three variants:
- a language of a historical ethnic minority spoken by the majority of the
citizens of the very region;
- a language of a historical ethnic minority which is spoken by a numerically
smaller group of persons in the very region;
- a language of a historical ethnic minority that cannot be identified with
a particular area 416
.
It is interesting, in view of Tomasz Wicherkiewicz’ group,
which of the above-mentioned options includes the so-called
"unwritten Kartvelian languages"?
We believe that the ‘Language Charter" must not cover the
Megrelian-Laz-Svan idioms as they represent local varietied of
national language of the Georgians.
Special care for the Georgian (Kartvelian) national treasure is itself
a responsibility of Georgian authorities.
Therefore, when ratifying the "European Charter neither new minority
languages (/languages of diasporas) nor domestic idioms – the
varieties of Georgia’s state language (Megrelian, Svan, Tsova-Tush,
Meskhian, Gurian, etc.) of ethnic Georgians are to be included in the list
of the regional or minority languages due to the fact that, as it is widely
accepted, the native language of these Georgians has alwas been the
Georgian language.
We would like to emphasize that the Charter does not oblige the
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parties apply provisions of Part III of the Charter – the higher level of
protection of a language of a historical minority.
A state can ratify the Charter even in case if it understakes obligation
to implement only Part II of the Charter (the lower level of a lan-
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guage of a historical minority) , which incorporates general provisions
on the protection of endangered languages.
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Provisions of Part II of the Charter may also cover the non-territorial minority languages
(Article 7, paragraph 5).
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See paragraphs 42 and 49 of the Charter.
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For discussion on the quality of protection of historical minorities in the UK see:
http://books.google.com/books?id=JsSrAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA36&dq=when+was+first+p
ublished+low+german+literature&ei=-qhSSd7KNoy4yAT85Ky3Bg#PPA39,M1.
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