Linguistic Human Rights
Majority language speakers often take their linguistic rights for granted:
- That their children are able to be educated through the medium of their own language
- That their mother tongue, the majority language, can be used in all (or most) official situations
- That the school supports the children in learning the official language as well as possible
- That they can identify with their mother tongue and have this identification accepted and respected by everybody, including the school and the census.
Many are not even aware that these self-evident rights are in fact denied to most linguistic minorities in the world. Even when these rights should be seen as .
The exact opposite of linguistic human rights would be a lack of them, and this in its extreme form can be seen as linguistic genocide. After the Second World War, when the United Nations were discussing genocide, linguistic and cultural genocide were discussed as on par with physical genocide and all were seen as crimes against humanity. In the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide linguistic genocide is defined as ‘prohibiting the use of the language of the group on daily intercourse or in schools, or the printing and circulation of publications in the language of the group’.
‘Prohibition’ of a language can be both direct and indirect. For example if the minority language is not used as a main medium of education, the use of language is indirectly prohibited in daily intercourse / in schools, and therefore it is a question of linguistic genocide. Since education is so important in relation to linguistic rights or lack of them, educational rights are vital. And this is particularly vital for a linguistic minority where the children mostly have to learn their main mother tongue through formal education, as is the case for deaf children.
What linguistic human rights do minority children have?
Many national constitutions provide more protection to minority languages in education than the international covenants. Conversely none of the international covenants overtly prohibits the use of minority languages, as some national constitutions do.
The Charter of the United Nations (1945)
Promotes ‘universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion’ and further states that ‘everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, birth or any other status’.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
No mention of language in education. There are references to the ‘full development of the human personality’ and the right of parents to ‘choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children’.
The International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (1966)
Having mentioned language on a par with race, colour, sex, religion etc in ts general article, the Covenant again omits any reference to language in the education article. There is an inconsistency here because the covenant does explicitly refer to ‘racial, ethnic or religious groups’ in the education article, though not ‘linguistic ones’.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966)
This does not have any education articles but it does state in article 27: “In those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language.’ Unfortunately this does not include educational institutions.
The UN Conventions on the Right of the Child (1989)
This stresses the maintenance of identity, including ‘nationality’ and ‘name’. It does not mention language in its general article on education, although it mentions ‘development of respect for the child’s parents, his or her cultural identity, language and values’, encourages ‘the mass media to have particular regard to the linguistic needs of the child who belongs to a minority group or who is indigenous’ and decrees that ‘due regard shall be paid to the desirability of continuity in a child’s upbringing and to the child’s ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background’ - but only when a child is temporarily or permanently deprived of the family environment. The clause does not refer to daily child care or school.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities
This goes further than any of the above conventions as it replaces the term ‘shall not be denied’ with ‘have the right’ and by adding that these rights apply ‘in private and in public, freely and without any form of discrimination’.
Article 2.1:
‘Persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities (hereinafter referred to as persons belonging to minorities) have the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion and to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and without interference or any form of discrimination.’
Article 4.2:
‘States shall take all measures to create favourable conditions to enable persons from minorities to express their characteristics and to develop their culture, language, religion, traditions and customs, except where specific practices are in violation of national and contrary to international standards.’
Article 4.3:
‘States should take appropriate measures so that, wherever possible, persons belonging to minorities have adequate opportunities to learn their mother tongue or to have instruction in their mother tongue.’
But this raises many questions: What constitutes ‘appropriate measures’ or ‘adequate opportunities’? Who is to decide what is ‘possible’? Does ‘instruction in’ the mother tongue mean ‘through the medium of their mother tongue’? And while this is a big step forward in relation to attitudinal changes, the UN Declaration is only a recommendation, not a covenant, and so states need not comply.
There is therefore an absence of any overt mention of language under the education clauses of those covenants that are binding, which is in contrast to the general clauses on non-discrimination, which relate to the exercise of all human rights. Minorities are therefore allowed to use their languages in private, but not in schools. This means that while there are many nice phrases about linguistic rights, International or European covenants that are binding, and where there is a complaint procedure, there are almost no linguistic rights.
Every state should guarantee basic linguistic human rights to all children in the education system, in day-care, schools and institutes of higher education, regardless of whether these children belong to linguistic majorities or minorities and regardless of whether the minority children represent indigenous minorities, traditional minorities, immigrated minorities or refugee minorities.
Knowing what linguistic human rights are and how to guarantee basic linguistic human rights to everybody should be an obligatory part of the training of every teacher and of school authorities.
The Deaf Community
The Deaf community should be considered a national linguistic minority in every country in the world. Can what happens to deaf children and adults in different countries be defined as linguistic genocide?
Linguistic genocide or ‘linguicide’ is the extreme form of a language-based form of racism, ‘linguicism’.
A Universal Convention of Linguistic Human Rights…?
In order to prevent linguistic genocide and to counteract linguicism we need a convention to protect linguistic human rights. Which linguistic rights are so basic and fundamental that everybody should have them? It has been suggested that this should include and guarantee several rights in relation to the mother tongue, an official language and in relation to drawing profit from education as far as the language of education is concerned.
Mother Tongue:
Everybody has the right to identify with their mother tongue(s) and have this identification accepted and respected by others
Everybody has the right to learn the mother tongue(s) fully, orally (when physiologically possible) and in writing (which presupposes that minorities are educated through the medium of their mother tongue(s))
Everybody has the right to use the mother tongue in most official situations (including schools)
Any change of mother tongue is voluntary, not imposed
Official Language:
It should guarantee that everybody whose mother tongue is not an official language in the country where he/she is resident, has the right to become a high level bilingual in the mother tongue and (one of) the official language(s) (according to her own choice).
Drawing Profit from Education:
It should guarantee that everybody can profit from formal education, regardless of what her mother tongue is.
Observing these linguistic human rights is a prerequisite for high levels of bilingualism.
Dilemma
On the one hand states have wanted to, or have been forced to, give ordinary people, including minorities, some human rights, in order to maintain legitimacy in the eyes of their citizens and also the international community. On the other hand, most of them have not wanted give minorities linguistic human rights, because granting minorities linguistic and cultural human rights which reproduce minorities as distinct minorities has often been seen as leading to a disintegration of nation states.
As a result linguistic minorities are not going to get linguistic human rights easily. Monolingual naivety – believing that monolingualism, both at an individual level and at a societal level, is normal, desirable and unavoidable, is one of the most dangerous illnesses in the world, and needs to be eradicated. Since the deaf communities have not be seen by nation states as equally dangerous as ethno linguistic minorities - deaf communities cannot be accused of wanting to form their own states and make the present states disintegrate if they get elementary linguistic rights – other minorities can learn much from the deaf communities about strategies.
Since many deaf people have additional challenges to deal with, compared to all other linguistic minorities, the Deaf Community will also need the support of other minorities. Unless majorities start seeing benefits of multilingualism themselves, they will not grant minorities those linguistic human rights.
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