The Wikipedia Editions of Low German and Other European Minority Languages

Abstract

This paper investigates the online presence of Low German, a minority language spoken in northern Germany, as well as several other European regional and minority languages. In particular, this article presents the results of a study that investigated how well or not these languages are represented in the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia. The article argues that minority and regional languages are not only underrepresented online due to a combination of historical, linguistic, sociological, and demographic reasons, but that the overall architecture of the World Wide Web and its most visited websites is such that smaller languages do not stand a chance to gain a meaningful online presence.