The Tower of Babel: Human Rights and the Paradox of Language (original) (raw)
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The study raises the question of whether it is necessary to recognize language rights, and responds with a series of philosophical, theoretical and anthropological arguments-sometimes quoting judicial formulations in favor of the recognition of language rights, especially minority language rights. It is a serious dilemma that, for historicalpolitical reasons, states often give priority to linguistic homogenization and consider multilingualism, the use of minority languages, as outdated or even dangerous, incompatible with the modern nation-state model. The article discusses the two fundamental principles which best underpin the international recognition of minority language rights: the protection of diverse communities and their equal rights. The study points out that in the practice of the UN Human Rights Committee and the ECtHR discrimination in the use of minority languages is recognized only in a very narrow sense. It means that the minority language sub-rights of general human rights may be interpreted too narrowly, and that recognition of these sub-rights may be denied, and this leads to the conclusion that explicit safeguards are needed to secure that minority language rights, and the corresponding state obligations arising from them are precisely defined.
Language Rights and Cultural Diversity
There are around 6,000 living languages in the world, but as of 2012 , less than 4 percent of them can claim official status in one or more of the 196 existing states. This lack of official status, along with other cultural, political, and legal factors, is contributing to a worldwide loss of linguistic diversity and cultural richness. The essays in this book explore the many facets of language rights and language protection from a variety of theoretical, legal, and academic perspectives. Important lessons are taken from the Basque case in Europe, and Native American and French-Canadian cases in North America. Woven throughout the book is the belief in the power of discourse and research to protect and even enhance linguistic diversity through legal recognition and other means. Language protection, however, is only possible if we encourage the acceptance of cultural diversity and multilingualism as a positive outcome for the whole population of the state, not just for a minority within it. We should abandon the idea of the monolingual mono-cultural nation-state, and encourage the population of each country to adopt the concept of a multi-cultural state.
Between minority protection and linguistic sovereignty
Revista de Llengua i Dret - Journal of Language and Law, 2018
Twenty-five years after the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, it is imperative to thoroughly reassess the status of language groups against the background of, first, the massive changes that have taken place in the framework of European politics since 1992 and, second, the normative deficits of approaches that may well have been designed with good intentions, yet end up reproducing entrenched structures of domination and subalternity. On the side of European politics, one can hardly say that recent developments bear witness to the emergence of a post-national order. In an environment characterized by the growing impact of identity politics played out by and for majorities, the generosity European governments were formerly willing to express towards minority concerns ‒ however rhetorical it may have ultimately been ‒ has nowadays become an exceptional phenomenon. On the normative side, we have seen that the Charter, notwithstanding its relevance for offering a template that...
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 1997
Contests over human rights as claims or entitlements to state assistance are how a major, if relatively recent, feature of the socio-political processes and institutions, of modern societies (Turner 1993). Within this wider debate about human rights, the subject of minority rights has long been of concern (Dinstein and Tabory 1992, Sigler 1983). A widely held, but not unanimous, view has emerged which argues that minorities have group or collective rights which cannot be reduced to their human rights as individuals. Linguistic and cultural rights are seen by many scholars as two such overlapping dimensions of collective minority rights (de Varennes 1996, Kymlicka 1995a, Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas 1995). In a world of multicultural and multilingual states, so the argument runs, these collective rights can only be guaranteed by the active involvement of states in the implementation of policies which support linguistic and cultural rights, just as in the case of more universally re...
Western European perspectives towards language minorities and linguistic rights – then and now.pdf
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International Legal Protection of Linguistic Minorities with the Example of the French Republic
Proceedings of the 2018 2nd International Conference on Management, Education and Social Science (ICMESS 2018), 2018
In many states, minorities irrespective of whether they are national or ethnic, religious or linguistic have been always representing one of the most vulnerable groups of people. This paper gives the definition of the term "minority", and analyses international legal framework for the protection of minority rights and realization of the international legal standards on linguistic minorities rights protection in the French Republic.