The Centre for Research on Bilingualism of Bangor University held a seminar on 27 February. Guest speaker Alex Riemersma discussed the formal European policies on multilingualism based on the 23 working languages vis-à-vis the linguistic reality of millions of European citizens who speak an autochthonous minority or a migrant language. With both the Unesco Language Vitality Index and the European Charter for RMLs as points of reference he compared the relatively strong position of Catalan and Welsh with the much weaker position of Frisian. In all three cases, however, the transmission of the language within mixed-language families is under threat. Both Catalan and Welsh are strongly present in public life and in the linguistic landscape; Frisian is a strong oral cultural language, but much weaker in writing.
With reference to the Mercator study on Minimum Standards on Language Education in Regional and Minority languages (2007) he proposed two further comparative studies: one on the application of the Charter as instrument for language vitality in society; another on the Common European Framework of Reference for language command (and use) for individual European citizens, students and adults alike. Those studies might contribute to the further development of the concepts and subscales of the Unesco Language Vitality index.
The powerpoint presentation can be found here