Next to German the three other smaller languages must be established in the Constitution

The President of the German Parliament, Norbert Lammert, has proposed anchoring German as the national language in the Constitution according to the on-line edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung last weekend. The General Secretary of the Society for Threatened Peoples, Tilman Zülch, has given the following statement:

"If German is to be established as national language then Article 22 of the Basic Law must be extended to enable the languages of the old established ethnic groups of the approximately 60,000 Sorbs, of the approximately 50,000 Danes and the approximately 12,000 Frisians to exist on an equal basis next to the German language. This means the Sorb language in the Lower and Upper Lausitz, Frisian in Frisia in the northwest of Schlesvig-Holstein and in the Saterland in the Lower Saxon district Cloppenburg and Danish in South Schlesvig.”

The GfbV has for more than 30 years been working as a human rights organisation for persecuted and discriminated ethnic and religious minorities and also for the equal treatment of smaller language communities.