[maze-le]

How is Basque "politically controversial"? It is an official language in the Basque Autonomous Community of Spain. Turkish is also a minority language in Greece. It doesn't have official status, but they have their own government mandated Turkish-language schools.

[gumby]

I was not aware that Turkish-language schools were in place in Greece. That's great!

Admittedly I don't know the current state of the politics of Basque but when I lived in France its use was not encouraged in the Basque region.

[AnimalMuppet]

For these purposes, I'm not sure that its political status is relevant. It's a language; there are a significant number of people in Europe who speak it. So it belongs on a list of European languages.

[Someone]

The language outside politics isn’t, but if you start using it as a weapon in politics (“there is a basque language, so there must be a Basque Country”), it can easily become controversial.

That certainly is the case when you start killing people for that cause (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_conflict)

[maze-le]

You do realize that militant Basque nationalist paramilitary groups are disarmed and disbanded since more than 10 years, yes?

It's like saying Irish is controversial because the Provisional IRA existed as an organization in the past...

[disown]

Which brings up an interesting point. What makes a language european? English, French, etc are official languages in many african and asian colonies due to conquest. Does it make french and english asian or african language? Is russian an asian language or a european language?

[qayxc]

> What makes a language european?

That one's simple: it's a native language in a European country.

> Does it make french and english asian or african language?

No, since the official language is not the native language of and in these countries. Afrikaans, on the other hand is an African language, though it originated from (and is still very close to) Dutch.

> Is russian an asian language or a european language?

Russian is still a European language, despite most of Russia being located in Asia. The Asian parts of Russia have their own regional native languages (35 or so in total), with more than 20 official ones.