The new peer-reviewed reference resource Linguistic Minorities in Europe Online (LME) provides comprehensive documentation of indigenous and immigrant linguistic minorities in Europe. It contains a variety of content and materials:

• Standardized overview articles on a given linguistic minority, each containing the following sections: Linguistic description (genealogy, structure, history) – Demographics (number and distribution of speakers, migration patterns, influences of geopolitical changes, etc.) – Status (immigrant or regional language, status in areas used, protection by European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages etc.) – Standardization (extent and manner of standardization/codification, acceptance/support and development of standard, relationship between standard and non-standard varieties etc.) – Variation (geographical, social, ethnic, age/gender-related, linguistic levels, extent and domains of use, etc.) – Attitudes (speakers’ perspective on language) – Revitalization and maintenance (extent, institutional or informal, vitality and proficiency of language) – Education (use as medium of instruction or object of study, types of schools/educational institutions, etc.) – Media (use in radio/television/social media/print media) – Other cultural practices/centers (music, dance, food, literature, cultural gatherings, etc.) – Conclusions and directions for further research
• In-depth research articles on various specific topics in European minority languages/linguistic minorities, including sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and ethnolinguistic perspectives
• Numerous articles include multimedia elements, such as audio, video, maps, photographs, etc.
• LME is open for publishing complete primary sources, such as annotated texts, transcriptions, corpora, glossaries, field notes, etc. (Open Access as well as non-Open Access)

All articles in LME are enriched with metadata, allowing specific searches, such as language name, country/state/region, language family, keywords, references, linguistic examples (source, IMT gloss, translation). The content is heavily interlinked, so as to enable users to quickly move from the overview articles to the in-depth research articles. Also, LME articles link out to selected external online resources.

Approximately 75% of the content will be custom-written for LME, while the remaining 25% will consist of seminal research from De Gruyter’s and De Gruyter Mouton’s archives, carefully selected by the main editors and area editors.

In September 2019, a free access pilot version with articles on Basque was released. The full version will be released in 2020. Following the launch year new articles will be added annually (in two yearly updates).

The full version of LME will contain articles on Basque, Croatian, Frisian, Hungarian, Turkish and Sámi as minority languages, among others (more languages/linguistic minorities will be added).

Linguistic Minorities in Europe Online is co-published with the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan (MultiLing) at the University of Oslo and edited by Lenore Grenoble (University of Chicago), Pia Lane (MultiLing, University of Oslo), and Unn Røyneland (MultiLing, University of Oslo) in collaboration with a group of expert area editors.