information for this section: Stephens 1976, Price 1998, Ahrens 2003, Grzega 2006) Despite the importance of English as an international lingua franca in Europe, Europe is also linguistically diverse, and minority languages are protected, e.g. by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages founded in the 1990s. This underlines that the popular view of "one nation = one language" (cf. Wirrer 2003) is mostly false. A minority language can be defined as a language used by a group that defines itself as an ethnic minority group, whereby the language of this group is typologically different and not a dialect of the standard language. For several years now, Jan Wirrer has been working on the status of minority languages in Europe (cf., e.g., Wirrer 2000 and 2003). In Europe—e.g. thanks to the European Charter of Regional and Minority Language—some languages are in quite a strong position, in the sense that they are given special status, such as Basque, Irish, Welsh, Catalan, Rhaeto-Romance/Romansh and Romani, native language of the Roma/Gypsies in southern Europe), whereas others are in a rather weak position (e.g. Frisian, Scottish Gaelic, Turkish, Saami/Lappish, Sorbian/Wendish and Yiddish, the once common language of Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe). Especially non-indigenous minority languages are not given official status in the EU. Some minor languages don't even have a standard yet, i.e. they have not even reached the level of an ausbausprache yet, which could be changed, e.g., if these languages were given official status. (cf. also next section). Issues in language politics (Sources and further information for this section: Siguan 2002, Ahrens 2003, Grzega 2006) France is the origin of two laws, or decrees, concerning language: the Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts (1239), which says that every document in France should be written in French (i.e. not in Latin nor Occitan) and the French Loi Toubon, which aims at eliminating Anglicisms from official documents. But a characteristic feature of Europe is linguistic diversity and tolerance, which is not only shown by the European Charta of Regional and Minority Languages. An illustrative proof of the promotion of linguistic diversity in the Middle Ages is the translation school in Toledo, Spain, founded in the 12th century (in medieval Toledo the Christian, Jewish and Arab civilizations lived together remarkably peacefully). This tolerant linguistic attitude is also the reason why the EU's general rule is that every official national language is also an official EU language.