The handbook of linguistic human rights

Do you know all the answers? I don’t. Let me therefore begin with a couple of questions. What is a handbook? What are linguistic human rights (LHRs)? First, a handbook is a reference work meant to provide ready information about a well-defined subject. Along with the facts and theories that they present, handbooks also embody a meta-statement to the effect that theirs is an established subject area that deserves or requires a comprehensive reference work.

The second question is trickier. As I write these lines, the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is being celebrated around the world. Against this background, it is instructive to recall what Hannah Arendt said about the forerunners of the 1948 Declaration in her classic work, The Origins of Totalitarianism. The allegedly ‘inalienable’ droits de l’homme were not, in fact, because in the nation-state system that solidified after the First World War, ‘the nation had conquered the state which was thus transformed from an instrument of the law into an instrument of the nation’ (Arendt 1951, 275). New boundaries were drawn, new minorities were created and, among them, any number of stateless people. These last ‘were as convinced as the minorities that loss of national rights was identical with loss of human rights, that the former entailed the latter’ (292). Are things much different in the age of ‘neoliberal human rights’? Specifically, is there any authority other than the national state that can enforce global norms?

As everyone knows from the daily news, human rights are still primarily moral principles that are often disregarded. The interest in human rights took a marked upturn in the 1970s, and that for LHRs followed a bit later. What we can learn from Arendt is that, like human rights, LHRs are far from natural; rather, they are a project that has attracted attention in recent decades. Why this happened is an interesting question about the times we live in, a question to which this handbook offers many answers.

Generally speaking, new human-rights norms emerge when constructed and promoted by political actors and activists who want to remake their society. This also holds for LHRs. Half a century ago they were on few people’s agenda, although discrimination on the grounds of language and the idea of the equality and dignity of all humans were hardly unknown.

This handbook is testimony to the movement towards the introduction of new legal norms. It brings together authors from various backgrounds and research fields. Linguists are the largest group by far, perhaps because they are often confronted with the symbolic and emotional functions of language, as well as the instrumental ones. Lawyers are a small minority. Educationalists and officials of organisations such as the World Federation of the Deaf and the UN Special Rapporteurs on Minority Issues form another group of contributing authors. And expertise from sociologists, economists and political scientists further enriches the wide spectrum of this volume, demonstrating that it is concerned with a complex and multidimensional subject. It is complex because languages and their speakers exist in socioeconomic and political circumstances related to cultural and literary traditions, attitudes, media, educational institutions and justice systems – all of which combine to form linguistic hierarchies of size, prestige and usefulness, hierarchies that make it difficult to contemplate language outside an ideological orbit.

The chapters of the book vary greatly in content and length (between 5 and 29 pages). There are brief descriptive accounts of, for example, the situation in one country where everyone speaks the same language, but half are illiterate; and there are lengthy theoretical treatments of the challenges faced by LHRs in the administration of justice. Varied themes reflect the linguistic configuration of countries and the position of minorities, which are very numerous in some and all but non-existent in others. LHRs have been brought to the attention of international organisations such as UNESCO that promote the protection and support of minorities. The extent to which this translates into tangible laws varies greatly from state to state, as does the implementation and violation of LHRs, each of which is covered in a separate section of this collection. We read in one chapter that the term ‘linguistic human rights’ is not associated with a clearly identifiable body of rights, and in another about ‘violations of LHRs’. Violations of norms that are vague? Clearly, the ‘violations’ discussed in various chapters do not all refer to the same kind of (or even similar) infringements. In some cases – when violations occurred in the nineteenth century (in the United States, for example) – the term is used anachronistically. Other cases document the present: these include recent Ukrainian laws restricting the right to use minority languages. Only in some cases, then, are violations punishable.

The first part of the book grapples with the concept of LHRs, the difficulties of pinning down a definition that is both substantial and generally recognised, and the various approaches to them in different disciplines by different organisations and in different parts of the world. Legal experts analyse the position of LHRs in the network of international conventions and treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976), while others concentrate on one country and one issue. Some authors provide their own definition, which they apply to a particular case without claiming universality.

The main focus of the handbook is the discrimination against minorities – groups of people whose language has become minoritised for historical and political reasons. The overarching question is how LHRs can be brought to bear in the interests of members of indigenous communities, persons with disabilities, or migrants of one kind or another. From this perspective, LHRs are intended to defend the weak rather than reconfirm the domination of the strong. The editors make no secret of their agenda. On the contrary: the first page of their introductory chapter emphasises ‘the need to counterbalance the mindset that permeates Eurocentric-US worldwide dominance.’ This underscores the normative character of LHRs that is confirmed in many of the 52 chapters.

The contributions to this book help us to answer the questions posed above – why has interest in LHRs increased in recent times, and how and why have LHRs become an ideal embraced by a growing number of people, NGOs, government institutions and organisations? Decolonisation and its consequences, including the recognition of past injustices by some governments, played a major role, as did the mass migration that continues today. Language policies of post-colonial successor states are another issue – in Latin America, for instance, where the former colonial languages are largely uncontested and attention to minority- language groups and their concerns for access to the educational and justice systems has been slow and incoherent. Endangered languages, mostly small indigenous varieties, which were originally studied by linguists with no direct connection to legal interests, have also become part of the LHRs agenda. In the age of globalisation, the assertion of identity has become a major point, especially in the Western world, be it individual, gender, ethnic, racial, religious or national. This clearly has a bearing on LHRs.

While a number of international instruments recognise LHRs, implementation at the national level is varied. LHRs are a political issue, and policy-making remains largely a national prerogative, even in the international context. Which institutions exist to guarantee LHRs to those who would want to claim them? How are they enforceable? Is there a code of LHRs? If you ask the experts represented in this volume, chances are that you will get more than one answer to each question. With the multitude of language configurations in the states existing today, this is perhaps inevitable, as is the over-representation of Europe and North America and the underrepresentation of language-rich Africa. These comments are not criticisms of the book, but a description of the state of the art that it represents.

In sum, this handbook reconfirms what I wrote above about the meta-message of all handbooks. At the same time, it presents a wealth of perspectives and case studies of LHRs – which, however, the authors do not all understand in the same way. What unites them is the idea that, in addition to serving as the most important means of communication, languages and linguistic diversity are a human heritage deserving of legal protection.