evidence: The European charter for regional or minority languages calls them "autochthonous", which strictly means native, but now also carries the suggestion of a language that's been displaced in importance by a more popular newcomer. Within the United Kingdom, the charter also recognises Cornish, Scots (aka Lallans), Irish Gaelic and Ulster Scots. The charter, which the UK ratified in 2001, asks that all be encouraged to survive. Two of them, Scots and Ulster Scots (aka Ullans), would be contested as languages separate from English or each other, and some might argue that Ullans was invented for purely political reasons, as a Protestant counterweight to the Irish Gaelic that was recognised by Northern Ireland's peace agreement. But then most language lobbies are as much political as cultural: at their most powerful, they have helped break up polyglot empires and kingdoms, and redrawn the boundaries of nation states.