In some cases, a regional language may be closely related to the state's main language or
official language. For example: • The
Frisian languages spoken in the Netherlands and Germany, which belong to the
Germanic family. • The
Gutnish language, a regional language spoken in
Gotland and related to the Swedish language. •
Kurdish in
Kurdistan, which is an autonomous region in northern
Iraq, Northwestern
Iran and southeastern
Turkey. •
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic in northern Iraq, northeastern
Syria, southeastern Turkey and northwestern Iran. • The several hundred
Sinitic languages are nearly always replaced by
Standard Chinese (based on the
Beijing dialect) in writing. •
Wu, in
Shanghai, southern
Jiangsu,
Zhejiang and eastern
Jiangxi. •
Yue Chinese, in
Guangdong, parts of
Guangxi,
Hainan,
Hong Kong and
Macau,
Cantonese is the regional standard variety for Yue-speaking areas •
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, has a bit under 90 thousand speakers, and is a language of the
Lechitic branch, alongside
Polish and
Silesian. •
Limburgish, a regional language in
Germany, the
Netherlands and Belgium, has around one million speakers and is closely related to
Luxembourgish,
Kleverlandish 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. •
Scots, a regional language of
Scotland and
Northern Ireland (both part of the
United Kingdom, and where it is known as
Ulster Scots in the latter location), belongs to the same family of
West Germanic languages as
English. •
Neapolitan,
Sicilian and
Venetian, regional languages spoken in
Italy which also belong to the same family of standard Italian (
Italo-Dalmatian). • 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.
Catalan is an
Occitano-Romance language. •
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. •
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 •
Tibetic languages •
Amdo tibetan language have regional official status in
amdo or
Qinghai. •
Standard Tibetan is currently based on
Lhasa Tibetan. •
Võro and
Seto, regional languages of
Estonia, are either dialects of
Estonian or separate
Finnic languages as Estonian. •
Walloon, a regional language of France and
Belgium, belongs to the same family of
Oïl languages as
French. •
Hindi and English are the
official languages of
India's
Central Government. • The officially declared
regional languages of India are:
Assamese,
Bengali,
Bodo,
Dogri,
Gujarati,
Hindi,
Kannada,
Kashmiri,
Konkani,
Maithili,
Malayalam,
Manipuri,
Marathi,
Nepali,
Odia,
Punjabi,
Sanskrit,
Santali,
Sindhi,
Tamil,
Telugu, and
Urdu. Most are
Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi and descend from Sanskrit, but 4 (Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam) are
Dravidian languages, 2 (Bodo and Manipuri) are
Sino-Tibetan, and Santali is a
Munda language. In addition, there have been demands for 38 more languages to receive recognition. •
Sylheti, a regional language of the
Sylhet Division of
Bangladesh and the
Barak Valley of
Assam, India, is often considered a dialect of Bengali but is also sometimes seen as a separate language. •
Chittagonian, a regional language of parts of the
Chittagong Division of
Bangladesh, is often considered a dialect of Bengali but is also sometimes seen as a separate language. 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 spoken in
Spain and
France (
Basque Country). •
Breton, a regional Celtic language spoken in
France (
Brittany). •
Cherokee is an
Iroquoian language, and one of the many
Native American languages spoken in the
U.S. State of
Oklahoma. •
Cornish, a regional Celtic language in the
United Kingdom (
Cornwall). •
Corsican, a regional language in
France (
Corsica) closely related to
Tuscan-derived
Italian. •
Gagauz, a regional
Turkic language spoken in
Moldova. •
Livonian, a regional language of the
Finnic family spoken in
Latvia. •
Resian, a dialect of
Slovene spoken in
Italy (
Resia valley). •
Sardinian, a regional
Romance language spoken in
Italy (
Sardinia). •
Scottish Gaelic, a regional
Celtic language spoken in the
United Kingdom (
Scotland). •
Sorbian, a regional
Slavic language of
Germany. •
Welsh, a regional
Celtic language spoken in the
United Kingdom (
Wales). ==Official languages as regional languages==