In Europe alone, around 40 million people speak a minority language and one estimate suggests that 80 per cent of the world’s languages will vanish in the next 100 years. Liet International, host of the 8 year old Liet International Song Contest, is endeavouring to ameliorate that situation by preventing contestants from singing in English. With an audience made up of young people who are the first or second generation never to learn their centuries-old regional dialect, the contest to raise awareness of Europe’s most endangered languages was recently held in Italy. With contestants singing in Irish, Croatian, Gaelic, Sápmi, Vepsian (Karelia), Ladinian (South Tyrol), Udmurtian (a Finno-Ugric language in Russia), Friulian, Rumantsch (Switzerland), Basque and Asturian, the winner, singing in Frisian, was Janna Eijer
read the article from Deutsche Welle here
