“Wi Snackt Wedder Platt!” Bringing Low German back to Bremen and Lower Saxony through the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

Abstract

Since 1992, when the Council of Europe created the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, 25 member states, including Germany, have ratified the Charter. The Charter protects several minority languages in Germany, but only one regional language—Low German—is included. My thesis argues that the Charter has had a positive impact on preserving Low German by supporting developments in education, politics, and daily life. I demonstrate this using the federal states of Bremen and Lower Saxony as my two case studies. While these are not the only federal states in the Low German region, the year I spent studying near Bremen in Lower Saxony (2010-2011) woke my interest in the Low German language and its importance in the culture of these particular states. Their schools, for example, have implemented creative solutions to fulfill the stipulations of the Charter. As I show, Bremen and Lower Saxony can serve as models for other regions of Europe that want to preserve their native regional and minority languages, an important part of their cultural identity.