Using language to help people, or using people to help language? Creating 'new speakers' of minority languages in relation to human rights (Fourteenth Annual Lecture on Language and Human Rights at the University of Essex) (original) (raw)

What does it mean to say you support minority languages? Historically, minority language policy has been about enabling speakers of smaller languages to speak them freely. But the last few decades have seen a growth of efforts to recruit entirely new speakers of minority languages. This goes well beyond encouraging younger generations of minority language communities to maintain their language. Witness instead the rise of “new speakers” – individuals “with little or no home or community exposure to a minority language but who instead acquire it through immersion or bilingual education programs, revitalization projects or as adult language learners” (O’Rourke et al. 2015: 1). A key example is the Welsh Government’s explicit goal of a million Welsh speakers by 2050 (roughly doubling the current number). This includes areas of Wales that have long ceased to be ‘heartlands’ of Welsh language use. Other similar examples include Catalan, Basque, Breton, Cornish, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic, where the state has committed to recruiting new speakers. I discuss all this in light of the human rights theory of capabilities – the idea that people should be enabled to improve their material wellbeing and achieve things like sustenance, civic engagement, justice, and other tenets of social inclusion. To what extent can the promotion of “new speakers” relate to capabilities? Is this about helping people improve their material wellbeing, or something more abstract? Can we really speak of the ‘human right’ to speak a language with which you have no heritage connection? Lastly, I ask what this might mean for the future of language policy. After all, in many cases there are clear signs of new speakers beginning to outnumber traditional speakers; so the minority language planning of tomorrow may look like a very different endeavour, requiring different explanations. • O’Rourke, Bernadette, Joan Pujolar & Fernando Ramallo. 2015. New speakers of minority languages: the challenging opportunity – Foreword. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 23(1): 1-20.

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