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Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

First Page

79

Abstract

Language is an instrument of communication that brings us together. Language is an element of identity that distinguishes us from one another. Language education is a means of leveling the playing field and giving all an equal opportunity. Language education is a way of destroying non-official languages and nonstandard language varieties and inevitably disfavors native speakers of those other languages and language varieties. Such are the paradoxes that every government must confront, from the largest to the smallest. Today, these questions of community and nation are being influenced by international organizations and treaties, transforming practice in spite of national traditions and a lack of enforcement powers. Enforcement of such provisions remains primarily national and internal in the wealthy countries and international and external for the poorer countries, such as the new members of the European Union. With some 6,000 languages distributed in 192 member states of the United Nations, every country has minority language issues. Achieving harmony and peace among peoples of different languages and cultures has depended on making all peoples feel that they are part of a given political entity, that their existence is not threatened. Failure to achieve those goals has exacted a heavy price, contributing directly to the First and Second World Wars as well as to numerous more localized conflicts. As a result, after each of these world wars the international community has attempted to address minority rights. President Woodrow Wilson of the United States declared, at the Peace Conference following World War I, "[n]othing... is more likely to disturb the peace of the world than the treatment which might in certain circumstances be meted out to minorities." In the following remarks, I shall first analyze definitions of minorities and minority languages and then look at the origins of the Western tradition of human rights in general and linguistic rights in particular. Then we shall examine how different national traditions have given institutional recognition to linguistic minorities. Finally, we shall look at one example of the types of problems that remain even if minorities are recognized and granted some protection.

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