This book offers a comparative approach within a general framework of studies on minority languages of Western Europe and Russia and former Soviet space, focusing on linguistic, legal and categorization aspects. It is connected to a comparative study of the semantic contents of the terms referring to the different categories of these languages.
The volume features multidisciplinary approaches, first linguistic (sociolinguistic and semantic) and legal, and investigates the limits of country-to-country comparisons, mirroring cases from France, Spain, and China with their counterparts from Soviet and later Russian configurations. Special examples, from a region as Ingria and a country as Tajikistan, help to contextualize this approach. In addition, the notion of migration languages, also minority languages, is studied in bilingual contexts, both from external (German, Greek, Chinese ...) and internal origins (Chuvash), linked to the urbanization in contemporary societies that has fostered the presence of these languages in major cities.

An Introduction to comparing Categorizations of Minority Languages; S. Moskvitcheva and A. Viaut.- Part I: Comparative Approach.- Reflections on a Multidisciplinary Approach to "Minority Languages" as a Legal Object in Europe: the Categorization of Regional and Minority Languages under the Charter; O. Dubos and V. Gusut.- Reflection on a Multidisciplinary Approach to "Minority Languages" as a Linguistic Object in Europe; A. Viaut.- The Epistemological Significance of Comparing Social and Scientific Approaches to Minority Languages in France and Spain; C. Lagarde.- Part II: Areal and Typological Configurations.- Prototypical Notions of Minority Languages in the Soviet Union and Russia: "Native Language" (rodnoj âzyk) and "National Language"(nacional'nij âzyk); S. Moskvitcheva.- The Categorization of the Languages in Ingria and the Language Loyalty of their Native Speakers; T. Agranat.- Categorization of Minor Pamir Languages in Tajikistan; L. Dodykhudoeva.- From Nominations of Socio-Ethnic Groups to Categorization of Minority Languages in China: Semantic Analysis; L. Xue.- Typology of Migration Languages and Linguistic Representations in a Bicultural Situation; A. Pascaud.- Social and political  status of "non-classical" diasporas on the territory of the ex-USSR; E. Nedopekina.- Categorization of the Chuvash Language in the Chuvash Republic and Beyond; M. Kutsaeva.