Wikimedia CEE Hub/Minority languages

WIKIMEDIA CEE HUB

Regional hub covering Central and Eastern Europe

This is an overview of the minority languages in the CEE Region and suggestions how they can improve their wikis done by the Wikimedia CEE Hub

Thanks to the information in the Community mapping research paper by Biyanto Rebin conducted in August 2023, we had a list of minority languages in the CEE Region. That information is available on the respective Meta page.

According to the definition of what a minority language is: that is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory.^[1]

In the research paper by Biyanto, he is dividing the language editions of Wikipedia in two categories: main status and additional status. 12 Wikipedia editions from the main status are included in the list below, as they do not have a status of the official language on country level, along with every 26 Wikipedia editions from the additional status.

In a separate table, there are minority languages per CEE countries, according to this document published by the Council of Europe with the latest update on 24 September 2024.^[2]

List of minority languages in the CEE (with own wiki)

In the table below, we can find 38 Wikipedia editions on the minority languages across the CEE Region. Most of these are minority languages spoken by various ethnic groups within the Russian Federation.

Nr.	ISO code	Language	Country/Countries	Nr. of articles (20. Nov. 2025)
1	ba	Bashkir	Russia	63.917
2	bat-smg	Samogitian	Lithuania	17.273
3	crh	Crimean Tatar	Ukraine, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria	29.620
4	gag	Gagauz	Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey	3.013
5	hsb	Upper Sorbian	Germany	14.203
6	hyw	Western Armenian	Turkey (Armenian Highlands), Armenia, Cyprus, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria	13.195
7	myv	Erzya	Russia	7.867
8	rmy^[3]	Romani	Across CEE	757
9	roa-rup	Aromanian	Greece, Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia	1.389
10	tt	Tatar	Russia	560.367
11	fiu-vro	Võro language	Estonia	6.854
12	yi	Yiddish	Central, Eastern, and Western Europe	15.633
13	azb	South Azeri^[4]	Iran, Turkey, Iraq	244.386
14	ce	Chechen	Russia	685.498
15	csb	Kashubian	Poland	5.496
16	cv	Chuvash	Russia	58.069
17	dsb	Lower Sorbian	Germany	3.426
18	inh	Ingush	Russia	2.411
19	kbd	Kabardian	Russia	1.637
20	koi	Komi-Permyak	Russia	3.468
21	krc	Karachay-Balkar	Russia	2.652
22	kv	Komi	Russia	5.729
23	lad	Ladino	Mediterranean	3.872
24	lbe	Lak	Russia	1.250
25	lez	Lezgian	Russia, Azerbaijan	4.452
26	ltg	Latgalian	Latvia, Russia	1.112
27	mdf	Moksha	Russia	7.613
28	mhr	Meadow Mari	Russia	11.327
29	mjr	Hill Mari	Russia	10.429
30	olo	Livvi-Karelian	Finland, Russia	4.634
31	pnt	Pontic Greek	Georgia, Turkey	488
32	rsk	Pannonian Rusyn	Croatia, Serbia	960
33	rue	Rusyn	Across CEE	10.143
34	szl	Silesian	Poland, Czechia	59.536
35	udm	Udmurt	Russia	5.714
36	vep	Veps	Russia	7.076
37	xal	Kalmyk Oirat	Russia	1.596
38	xmf	Mingrelian	Georgia	21.933

A special case is Esperanto, which has a Wikipedia and main volunteers are based in Slovakia. This Wikipedia has 378.082 articles (20. Nov. 2025)
Another case is Serbo-Croatian, which has a Wikipedia and main volunteers are based in the CEE Region. This Wikipedia has 461.196 articles (20. Nov. 2025)
The Montenegrin language does not have its own version of Wikipedia.

Recognized minority languages per country

Remark: The list can be incomplete.

Here is the list of minority languages recognized in the CEE countries by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, along with a list of languages recognized as minority languages according to English Wikipedia:^[5] Abaza (Russia), Abkhaz (Georgia), Adyghe (Russia), Aghul (Russia), Albanian (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia,^[6] Romania, Serbia), Armenian (Cyprus, Hungary, Poland, Romania) Aromanian (Albania, Macedonia, Serbia),^[7] Assyrian (Armenia), Avar (Azerbaijan, Russia), Azerbaijani (Russia), Bashkir (Russia), Belarussian (Poland, Ukraine), Bosnian (Montenegro, Macedonia,^[8] Serbia), Boyash (Hungary), Bulgarian (Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine), Bunjevac (Serbia), Chechen (Russia), Chuvash (Russia), Crimean Tatar (Russia, Ukraine), Croatian (Austria,^[9] Czechia,^[10] Hungary, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia), Cypriot Maronite Arabic (Cyprus), Czech (Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia), Gagauz (Moldova, Ukraine), German (Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine), Greek (Albania, Armenia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine), Erzya (Russia), Hebrew (Moldova), Hungarian (Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine), Ingush (Russia), Istro-Romanian (Croatia), Italian (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia), Kabardian (Russia), Kalmyc (Russia), Karachay-Balkar (Russia), Karaim (Poland, Ukraine), Karelian (Finland, Russia), Kashub (Poland), Khinalug (Azerbaijan), Komi-Zyrian (Russia), Krimchak (Ukraine), Kurdish (Armenia), Ladino (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Lemko (Poland), Lezgian (Azerbaijan), Lithuanian (Poland), Livonian (Latvia), Latgalian (Latvia), Macedonian (Albania, Romania, Serbia), Mari as Hill Mari and Meadow Mari (Russia), Moksha (Russia), Moldovan (Ukraine), Nogai (Russia), Ossetian (Russia), Polish (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czechia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine), Romani (Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czechia, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine), Romanian (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Ukraine), Russian (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Czechia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine), Rusyn/Ruthenian (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine), Serbian (Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia), Slovakian (Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine), Slovenian (Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary), Talysh (Azerbaijan), Tat (Azerbaijan), Tatar (Poland, Romania, Russia), Tsakhur (Azerbaijan), Turkish (Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania), Udmurt (Russia), Ukrainian (Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia), Vietnamese (Czechia), Yezidi (Armenia), and Yiddish (Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine).

We can notice that nearly every CEE country has at least one minority language and/or official language that is recognized and is spoken by some portion of the population in that country.

How to start to work with a minority language?

If you are an editor and/or interested in evolving the minority language mentioned in the above mentioned list of minority languages with your own Wikipedia, you can refer to this guideline for instructions on how to activate additional editors on your Wikipedia

Contact affiliate in your country, if it exist
- If not, then you can consider to create an organisation dedicated to this topic (i.e. another Wikimedia affiliate). As this is a major step for a small group, you need to consult this Manual for small and new Wikipedias.
Find any language organisation or association interested in that language, as you can become partners with them
- Language organisation is a necessity, if the language does not have any standard written variant. Writing articles on different dialects and/or variants of the language can be difficult when you start a new language edition on Wikipedia, so you need guidelines when some words/grammar differ in the language variants.
You will need a Wikipedia manual in your language or you can use videos with explanations
- You can always use the manual in other languages (official language in the country or English language; more about Wikipedia in terms of manual can be found here)
You need to identify the possible editors (survey, interviews, announcements, etc.) and to find out (good example is this research):
- How many of the speakers can write in that language
- How many of the speakers can write digitally (using computers)
You need to find materials (printed, digital) written in that language, using libraries, organisations, schools, etc.
You need to find materials (printed, digital) written about the topic of that language and culture in other languages

Once you have some of these in place, you can begin considering ways to enhance Wikipedia and foster greater opportunities for new editors. Therefore, you may consider the following steps:

Workshops (in-person, hybrid, online), where you can teach interested participants about writing Wikipedia articles
- They can start translating directly (if the translation tool is allowed on that wiki) or they can translate manually from English or the official language in that country and/or some bigger wiki to your minority language
- They can create their own articles (remark: keep the articles to be short, so they can see the published article at the end of the workshop). You will need materials for this option.
Editing contest (online), where you can invite workshop participants to take part in the online contest. The contest can be in a different format, such as editing week, editing day, editing weekend, or even whole month, where they will publish articles on some topic. Advise: You can set a local topic and/or topic where you can translate the most important 1000 Wikipedia articles.

Networks

Here is the incomplete list of possible networks that are working on the area of a minority languages across the Wikimedia movement:

Wikimedia Language Diversity Hub (active)
Wikimedia Language Diversity (seems inactive)
Wiki for Minorities (active)
Celtic Knot Conference (conference supporting Celtic and other languages)
Wikimedia Finno-Ugric Collaboration (partnerships among communities)

Resources

Here is a set of resources available to the Wikimedians across Meta-wiki as they can use ideas on how to start some activities on Wikipedia and/or other wiki. The list is not exhaustive.

Incubator (to start a new wiki)
Manual for small and new Wikipedias
Lingua Libre (Wikimedia's rapid vocabulary recording app)
Capacity development for underrepresented communities (Movement Strategy grant proposal with a focus to the underrepresented communities)
…more

References

↑ Source: English Wikipedia
↑ Information about minority languages for some countries are from the English Wikipedia.
↑ The ISO code rmy is about Vlax Romani language, which is native mostly in Southeastern Europe.
↑ Northern and Southern Azerbaijani are considered distinct languages by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
↑ The information is available from page 6 onwards, except for Albania, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Russian Federation, as the data is taken from the English Wikipedia.
↑ Albanian language in Macedonia has a status as co-official language.
↑ Aromanian language information is available on the English Wikipedia.
↑ Bosnian language in Macedonia has a status of a minority language and is taught in the schools.
↑ Known as Burgenlandcroatian.
↑ Known as Moravian Croatian.

[1] Source: English Wikipedia

[2] Information about minority languages for some countries are from the English Wikipedia.

[3] The ISO code rmy is about Vlax Romani language, which is native mostly in Southeastern Europe.

[4] Northern and Southern Azerbaijani are considered distinct languages by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

[5] The information is available from page 6 onwards, except for Albania, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Russian Federation, as the data is taken from the English Wikipedia.

[6] Albanian language in Macedonia has a status as co-official language.

[7] Aromanian language information is available on the English Wikipedia.

[8] Bosnian language in Macedonia has a status of a minority language and is taught in the schools.

[9] Known as Burgenlandcroatian.

[10] Known as Moravian Croatian.

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