TOVE SKUTNABB-KANGAS

LINGUISTIC GENOCIDE IN EDUCATION - OR WORLDWIDE DIVERSITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS?

Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.(10 Industrial Avenue, Mahwah, New Jerseu 07430-2262, USA, fax (+1) - (201) 236-0072; http://www.erlbaum.com. For orders orders@erlbaum.com; in Europe orders@eurospan.co.uk. ISBN cloth 0-8058-3467-2, paperback 0-8058-3468-0. The paperback costs 55 dollars. Promotion coordinator Susan Barker sbarker@erlbaum.com, in case somebody might want to review it. Publication date January 2000. Size 818 pages, including 35 Tables, 2 Figures, 44 Definition Boxes, 89 Info Boxes, 134 Inserts, 18 Address Boxes, and 23 Reader Tasks; bibliography with 1574 items; separate Esperanto bibliography; Person, Country, Languages and Subject Indexes.

This document contains the list of contents and a short outline of the book (from the Preface).

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LIST OF CONTENTS

Preface 1

Outline of the book 1

How to use the book - some advice to the reader 3

Who might want to read the book 4

Acknowledgements 4

Introduction 1

Asking why-questions 1

Repoliticizing the language of schooling 2

Acknowledging feelings, value judgements and the need for action as legitimate parts of research 3

Standpoint theories 6

Linguistic genocide, language murder - a note on terminology 8

PART I

SETTING THE SCENE 3

1. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD 2

1.1. Our knowledge about 'language' and languages 3

1.1.1. Problems in identifying what is 'a language'. 3

1.1.2. Our knowledge about languages is shaky 8

1.2. The world's languages: number of languages and number of speakers 17

1.2.1. Number of languages 17

1.2.1.1. Reliability of statistics 17

1.2.1.2. Where are the languages? 19

1.2.1.3. Megadiversity countries 20

1.2.2. Number of speakers of each language 22

1.3. The state of the languages: the 'moribund', the 'endangered' and the 'safe' 29

1.4. Examples of languages pushed into disuse 31

Table 1.1. The countries with most languages in the world 20

Table 1.2. Variations in estimates of number of languages in the most diverse countries 20

Table 1.3. The ten most linguistically diverse countries, according to Robinson 1993 22

Table 1.4. The top 10 oral languages in terms of number of first language speakers, all more than 100 million speakers 23

Table 1.5. The languages with between 35 and 100 million first language speakers 24

Table 1.6. Languages with beween 10 and 35 million home speakers, numbers and ranks 25

Table 1.7. Overview of oral language sizes and numbers 28

Table 1.8. Threatened and safe languages, definitions and estimates 30

Definition Box 1.1. Linguicism (Skutnabb-Kangas) 17

Definition Box 1.2. Endo-definitions and exo-definitions (autonyms and heteronyms) 19

Definition Box 1.3. Endemic species & languages 20

Definition Box 1.4. Community language 26

Definition Box 1.5. Moribund, endangered & safe languages 29

Info Box 1.1. Are these names of languages? (see Task Box 1.2) 12

Info Box 1.2. Most likely to hear the language in country x? (see Task Box 1.3) 12

Info Box 1.3. Where are Arabic and Chinese widely spoken? (see Task Box 1.4) 13

Info Box 1.4. Languages widely spoken or with official status (see Task Box 1.5) 14

Info Box 1.5. Languages apart from English which have official status in British Isles (see Task Box 1.6, A) 14

Info Box 1.6. Literature describing and classifying the world's languages 15

Info Box 1.7. UNESCO World languages report 16

Info Box 1.8. International Clearing House for Endangered Languages 17

Info Box 1.9. Differences in estimates on numbers of languages in prehistoric times 18

Info Box 1.10. Examples of difficulty in getting reliable census figures 18

Info Box 1.11. 'Community languages' in Africa 27

Info Box 1.12. Languages with over 1 million home speakers - total 208 languages 27

Info Box 1.13. None of California's roughly 50 native languages widely learned by children 31

Info Box 1.14. Canada - 3 out of 53 native languages have 'an excellent chance of survival' 32

Info Box 1.15. Cameroon - travel 50 kilometers, almost a dozen languages 32

Info Box 1.16. Central Nigeria - 95 of 100 languages with under 200 speakers 'completely undescribed' 33

Info Box 1.17. Aboriginal peoples in Australia 33

Info Box 1.18. Skolt Sámi in (the Finnish part of Sápmi) 34

Insert 1.1. Kurdish and Turkish 4<

Insert 1.2. 'Lappish' and Finnish 4

Insert 1.3. Dialect/language villages 4

Insert 1.4. Name 'Kaurna' comes from neighbouring people 5

Insert 1.5. Census returns for 'mother tongue', India 5

Insert 1.6. Number of languages in the world is 300, number of states is 2,000 (a classroom scene, USA) 8

Insert 1.7. Paul Keating: Australians understand all languages 9

Insert 1.8. Moribund slaves and languages 29

Insert 1.9. Last speaker of Tuscarora dies 35

Insert 1.10. I will not for the world give up (Meänkieli, Sweden) 35

Address Box 1.1. The journal Languages of the World 15

Address Box 1.2. UNESCO World languages report 16

Address Box 1.3. International Clearing House for Endangered Languages 17

Address Box 1.4. The Ethnologue 18

Reader Task 1.1. Language or dialect? 3

Reader Task 1.2. Names of languages? 9

Reader Task 1.3. Most likely to hear the language in country x? 10

Reader Task 1.4. Where are Arabic and Chinese widely spoken? 10

Reader Task 1.5. Widely spoken or official languages? 11

Reader Task 1.6. Official status for English? other languages? largest number of speakers? 11

Reader Task 1.7. Place languages geographically - Eurocentrism? 28

2. CONNECTIONS BETWEEN BIODIVERSITY AND LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY 3

2.1. Our threefold living environment - biological, linguistic and cultural - is threatened by globalisation 3

2.2. Language and species - defining linguistic and biological diversity 6

2.3. Comparing the threat towards biodiversity and linguistic diversity 10

2.3.1. Decline of biodiversity 10

2.3.1.1. Numbers and extinction rates 10

2.3.1.2. Threatened animals 12

2.3.1.3. Threatened plants 14

2.3.2. Endangered and threatened - comparison between biological species and languages 16

2.4. The correlation between biodiversity and linguistic and cultural diversity 21

2.5. Causal connections between biodiversity and linguistic and cultural diversity? 25

Table 2.1. Extinction rates for biological species, alternative estimates 11

Table 2.2. World's native plant species facing extinction 15

Table 2.3. Endemism in language and higher vertebrates: comparison of the top 25 countries 22

Definition Box 2.1. Biological & linguistic diversity 7

Definition Box 2.2. Subtractive and additive language learning and language spread; diglossia 8

Definition Box 2.3. New IUCN Red List category definitions on endangered species; U.S. Endangered Species Act definitions 13

Definition Box 2.4. UNESCO Red Books category definitions of endangered languages 17

Definition Box 2.5. 'Traditional knowledge', 'indigenous peoples' knowledge' 26

Definition Box 2.6. 'Wild nature' - indigenous peoples' agriculture 27

Info Box 2.1. Right and duty to develop cultures (UNESCO) 5

Info Box 2.2. Countries where no linguistic group exceeds 50% of the population 10

Info Box 2.3. Life in 1 acre of warm temperate forest - more plants than in the whole of Britain 16

Info Box 2.4. Terralingua - Partnerships for Linguistic and Biological Diversity; Statement of purpose 21

Info Box 2.5. Factors responsible for language death and language maintenance (Blench, Central Nigeria) 24

Insert 2.1. Algonquian and Finnish stories 3

Address Box 2.1. The Red Lists for animals and plants 14

Address Box 2.2. UNESCO Red Books on Endangered Languages 17

Address Box 2.3. Organisations working with endangered languages 18

Address Box 2.4. Terralingua 20

Address Box 2.5. Electronic Resources on Languages and Language Endangerment 20

Reader Task 2.1. How many organisations do you know for the maintenance of biodiversity? What about linguistic diversity? 6

Reader Task 2.2. Possible definitions of threats to languages 12

3. MOTHER TONGUE(S), CULTURE, ETHNICITY AND SELF-DETERMINATION 4

3.1. Conceptualizing ourselves and the world 4

3.2. Mother tongue(s) 5

3.2.1. Definitions of mother tongue(s) 5

3.2.2. Theses about mother tongues 7

3.2.2.1. Degree of human rights awareness in definitions 8

3.2.2.2. Problems with the definitions 11

3.3. Cultural diversity and cultural competence 15

3.3.1. Components of cultural competence: cognitive, affective, behavioural and awareness-related 16

3.3.2. Assimilation and integration 22

3.3.3. Combining cultural competence and integration 30

3.4. Language(s) for multiple identities 34

3.4.1. Mother tongue as identity 34

3.4.2. Creation of Self and Other 39

3.4.2.1. Complementary, non-threatening I and Thou, We and You 39

3.4.2.2. Oppositional, hierarchical Self and Other 41

3.4.2.2.1. Woman and man, 'black' and 'white' 42

3.4.2.2.2. Language or dialect/patois/vernacular? 45

3.4.3. Identities and the right to name oneself 52

3.5. Ethnicity and language 61

3.5.1. Are only minorities 'ethnic'? 62

3.5.2. Exo- or endo-definitions - is ethnicity a characteristic or a relation? 68

3.5.3. Ethnonyms, toponyms, politonyms and linguonyms/glottonyms 73

3.5.4. Example Europe: Fortress Europe (exclusion) or 'Integrated Europe' (inclusion) for whom? 77

3.6. Language for control and domination, resistance and self-determination 90

3.6.1. Glorification, stigmatisation and rationalisation 90

3.6.2. Control and domination - and resistance 95

Table 3.1. Definitions of mother tongue 6

Table 3.2. Reproduction of unequal power relations through glorification, stigmatisation and rationalisation 90

Definition Box 3.1. Acculturation, assimilation, no integration (Encyclopaedia Britannica) 23

Definition Box 3.2. Short definitions of assimilation and integration 24

Definition Box 3.3. Ontological, epistemological 40

Definition Box 3.4. 'Woman' and 'man' from one dictionary 43

Definition Box 3.5. 'Black' and 'white' from two dictionaries 44

Definition Box 3.6. Language, dialect, vernacular, patois, from one dictionary 46

Definition Box 3.7. Who is a terrorist? 60

Definition Box 3.8 Only minorities have ethnicity, A Modern Dictionary of Sociology, New York, 1969 62

Definition Box 3.9. Criteria for an ethnic group, Allardt 70

Definition Box 3.10. Criteria for an ethnic group, A Modern Dictionary of Sociology 71

Definition Box 3.11. Toponym, politonym, ethnonym (Bromley); linguonym 73

Definition Box 3.12. Ius soli versus Ius sanguinis 79

Info Box 3.1. 'Foreigners' in Germany 'have not yet understood' that they have to assimilate 26

Info Box 3.2. Minorities' right to maintain their mother tongue 33

Info Box 3.3. Women get less space in dictionaries than men - except as mothers (Sweden, Finland) 43

Info Box 3.4. Married woman - from husband's material property to his symbolic property (Finland) 54

Info Box 3.5. Exo-definitions making 'Indians' (Canada) or Japanese and Chinese (South Africa) 'honorary whites', or Khoe and San 'coloured' (South Africa) 57

Info Box 3.6. Exo-definitions combining racism with sexism and classism (Canada) 58

Info Box 3.7. A state is a relation 59

Insert 3.1. Tove's mother tongues 6

Insert 3.2. Mother tongue defined by function (Denmark) 8

Insert 3.3. Who causes the costs, bilinguals or monolinguals? Laila Somby Sandvik (Norway) 10

Insert 3.4. Monolinguals cause the costs - they should pay... 10

Insert 3.5. It is not part of the Australian policies to sustain or preserve different cultures (Zubrzycki, Gobbo) 17

Insert 3.6. Abolish dominant languages and cultures from schools - they are part of a private ethnicity and programmes for their maintenance are misguided? (John Edwards) 18

Insert 3.7. Coulmas: 'either-or' rather than 'both-and' 36

Insert 3.8. Language and identity: Ojibway (Canada); Palawa Karni (Tasmania) 37

Insert 3.9. Linguistic competence most important aspect of general education - Kerstin Ekman, author 37

Insert 3.10. A person forced to leave her language loses the meaning of her life (Transsylvania, Romania) 38

Insert 3.11. With God you speak your emotional language 38

Insert 3.12. 'Like an oyster gasping for air' - French journalist forced to use English' 39

Insert 3.13. Impact of negative labelling, USA 45

Insert 3.14. Connotations of NEP and LEP 47

Insert 3.15. 'I don't speak "foreign", I speak my own language!' 48

Insert 3.16. Enforced change of names 54

Insert 3.17. Turkish state does not accept Kurdish name 56

Insert 3.18. Who is 'ethnic'? 63

Insert 3.19. 'Ethnic'/'Ethnicity' used as a marked label, Norway, Finland, Denmark 63

Insert 3.20. First person 'of color' to play Othello 64

Insert 3.21. Peace Corps: English is not a language 65

Insert 3.22. No women in Israel? Celts were men? Only males are working class in France? 66

Insert 3.23. A blood type called 'M~ori blood'? 'Indians, or persons having one fourth or more Indian blood' could not be witnesses (California) 75

Insert 3.24. Is Russia European? Tolstoy: big landowners and intellectuals yes, peasants no 80

Insert 3.25. Swedes need not be flax-blond ... 81

Insert 3.26. ... but in Denmark darker citizens are in trouble 81

Insert 3.27. Hope for Europe? 83

Insert 3.28. Slavery in Europe (Roma) 84

Insert 3.29. Just one Sámi language? Not correct. 92

Insert 3.30. Afrikaans - 'confused utterance of half-articulated patois' (South Africa) 92

Insert 3.31. Khoikhoi: 'When they speak they fart with their tongues in their mouths' (Southern Africa) 92

Insert 3.32. Nagamese = dog Assamese? (India) 93

Insert 3.33. Linguistics students do not know the number of vowels in their mother tongues (India) 94

Insert 3.34. Countering stigmatisation and glorification: Tagore's family 95

Insert 3.35. Poem MEN IN POWER by Pirkko Leporanta-Morley 97

Reader Task 3.1. What is/are your mother tongue(s)? 6

Reader Task 3.2. Observe how Self and Other are labelled; change labels! 47

Reader Task 3.3. Find alternatives to pig-pink 65

Reader Task 3.4. Your own identity in terms of toponym, politonym, ethnonym and linguonym? 77

4. LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY - CURSE OR BLESSING? TO BE MAINTAINED OR NOT? WHY? 2

4.1. Linguistic diversity in great myths 2

4.1.1. Who invented language, God or Adam - or Eve? 3

4.1.2. Many languages, good or bad? The Bible: a curse; the Qur'~n: sign of Allah's omnipotence; other myths: punishment for or prevention of quarreling 4

4.1.3. 'Natural' extinction rates for languages? 5

4.1.4. Simultaneous killing and preserving of diversity - double agents? 8

4.1.4.1. Missionaries 8

4.1.4.2. Invisibilisers 10

4.1.4.3. Triumphalists 14

4.1.4.4. 'Research for researchers' sake'? 16

4.2. The ideology of monolingual reductionism/stupidity/naivety 17

4.2.1. The four myths 17

4.2.1.1. Myth 1: Monolingualism is normal 17

4.2.1.2. Myth 2: Monolingualism is desirable 18

4.2.1.3. Myth 3: Monolingualism is sufficient 20

4.2.1.4. Myth 4: Monolingualism is inevitable 22

4.3. Arguments for and against linguistic diversity 23

4.3.1. Arguments for linguistic diversity 23

4.3.1.1. Dascal's 'arguments in favor of language multiplicity' 23

4.3.1.2. Relationship between linguistic and cultural diversity -languages as depositories of diverse knowledge for sustainability 25

4.3.2. Arguments against linguistic diversity 29

4.3.2.1. The cost and efficiency argument 29

4.3.2.1.1. The argument 29

4.3.2.1.2. Critique: costs and communications 30

4.3.2.1.3. Critique: costs and power & control 33

4.3.2.2. The 'choice' argument 35

4.4. The balance sheet: Epistemological arguments for linguistic and cultural diversity 40

4.5. Esperanto? 41

Table 4.1. Communication (physical or mental) as exchange of commodities or ideas 30

Table 4.2. Exerting power: means, processes and sanctions 33

Table 4.3. What is colonised? 34

Definition Box 4.1. Some basics: Pathological versus sociocultural ideologies of Deafness; 'Deaf' vs 'deaf'; Sign languages vs manually coded oral languages (Manual Sign Codes); manualists vs oralists; Total Communication 11

Definition Box 4.2. Planned languages (including Esperanto) 41

Info Box 4.1. Who created language? The Bible, The Qur'~n 3

Info Box 4.2. Number of languages between the Flood and the tower of Babel 3

Info Box 4.3. Qur'~n - diversity sign of Allah 4

Info Box 4.4. French more important for Namibia than 'Indigenous languages' - exo-planners views 13

Info Box 4.5. Knowledge of other former USSR languages by Russians, versus Knowledge of Russian by non-Russian mother tongue speakers 18

Info Box 4.6. The Konds in Orissa, India 25

Info Box 4.7. Jobs - everybody knows English - you need more! 32

Insert 4.1. Dolgan fairytale - many languages punishment for quarrelling 4

Insert 4.2. Iatiku - many languages prevent quarrelling 4

Insert 4.3. No praying - no antibiotics 9

Insert 4.4. Reclaiming languages using missionary sources: Esselen (California), Kaurna (Australia) 9

Insert 4.5. Invisibilizing cultures, peoples, countries 14

Insert 4.6. An army of linguistic missionaries: gentlemen teachers of English 15

Insert 4.7.'Archivists' in Australia 16

Insert 4.8. Monolingualism is desirable (Japan) 19

Insert 4.9. Macaulay: value of literature in English 21

Insert 4.10. No need to translate from other languages to English, British Council 21

Insert 4.11. Kamalesh & Doris: daughters not allowed in Hindu temple 21

Insert 4.12. Children of elites do not learn the parents' language (Tanzania) 22

Insert 4.13. English-medium education: 'We possess insignificant amounts of the cultural capital of Telugu' 26

Insert 4.14. 'I have drunk the milk of a strange woman' 27

Insert 4.15. Telugu-speaking grandmother cannot communicate with her Hindi- and English-speaking grandchildren 27

Insert 4.16. Singapore Prime Ministers regret choice of English as medium and diminishing competence in Chinese 27

Insert 4.17. 'And we think: "I'm proud to be Chinese," In English' (Singapore) 28

Insert 4.18. Croats in Austria in court to get German medium education 35

Insert 4.19. Parents want mother tongue in school (Finns in Sweden) 36

Insert 4.20. Parents want mother tongue in school (Kurdish family, Denmark) 36

Insert 4.21. No Malayalam available in Hyderabad 38

Insert 4.22. From slavery to multiculturalism - parents not heard (Australia); Why do Huaorani continue to clamor for schools, even while blaming them for the destruction of their culture? 38

Insert 4.23. 'Do the parents really know ... the damage done to the children' (Pattanayak, India) 39

Insert 4.24. Bengali boy taught in English - like an earthquake in the mouth - the inside remains starved 39

Insert 4.25. Oral versus written communication: Kannada - English, Sámi - Norwegian 39

Insert 4.26. 'the most serious problem for the European Union ... so many languages' (American Ambassador) 40

Address Box 4.1. Deaf Resources 12

Address Box 4.2. Esperanto 43

Reader Task 4.1. English and other languages - same treatment? 16

Reader Task 4.2. How much REAL choice was there? 37

Reader Task 4.3. Animal names in Esperanto and other languages 42

Reader Task 4.4. Which language options fulfill the criteria? Assess Esperanto and English 44

PART II

LINGUISTIC GENOCIDE, STATE POLICIES AND GLOBALISATION 3

5. STATE POLICIES TOWARDS LANGUAGES - LINGUISTIC GENOCIDE, LANGUAGE DEATH OR SUPPORT FOR LANGUAGES? 4

5.1. Possible state policies towards languages/dialects/"non-standard" variants/"non-native" variants 4

5.1.1. Taxonomy of state policies towards languages 5

5.1.2. The big languages as official languages 6

5.1.3. Legal hierarchies of languages: official, national, additional, link, part of culture or national heritage 7

5.1.4. Partial support of specific language functions 12

5.2. Linguistic genocide 13

5.2.1. Reducing the number of languages is reducing prerequisites for self-determination 13

5.2.2. Don't shoot the messenger! 14

5.2.3. UN definition of linguistic genocide 16

5.3. Linguistic genocide in educational practice 17

5.3.1. A short overview of how the education of minorities and indigenous children has been organised 17

5.3.2. Preventing the use of the language overtly and directly, as in the 'old' days 18

5.3.2.1. ... through physical punishment 18

5.3.2.1.1. Example: Turkish Kurdistan 18

5.3.2.1.2. Other examples 22

5.3.2.2. ... through separation: boarding schools and adoption 24

5.3.2.3. ... but also through shame and stigmatisation of the uncivilised 34

5.3.3. Preventing the use of the language covertly and indirectly, by today's means 37

5.3.3.1. ... through structural means 37

5.3.3.2. ... through invisibilisation 38

5.3.3.3. ... still through shame and stigmatisation, and making a resource seem like a handicap 39

5.3.3.4. Carrots (combined with sticks, threats or shame) 41

5.3.3.5. Sophisticated linguicism more effective? Resistance? 42

5.4. Language death and linguistic genocide/linguicide - two paradigms? 44

Table 5.1. Taxonomy of state policies towards minority languages 5

Table 5.2. States where English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, German, Malay, Chinese or Tamil have official status (are 'an' or 'the' official language or 'have otherwise official status') 6

Table 5.3. Linguistic genocide & linguistic imperialsm versus language death & liberalist modernisation paradigms/theories 47

Definition Box 5.1.'territories', 'significant' languages (McArthur) 8

Definition Box 5.2. 'Languages of Rule' (Kidron & Segal) instead of 'official languages' 13

Definition Box 5.3. 'Terra nullius'; the Mabo Case 31

Definition Box 5.4. Racism, ethnicism, linguicism, sexism, classism, ageism 46

Info Box 5.1. How many states are there? 5

Info Box 5.2. Differentiation between official (or state) and national languages (Switzerland) 9

Info Box 5.3. Official language has higher status than national language (Congo, Vanuatu, Sri Lanka) 9

Info Box 5.4. Language with final arbiter role (Western Samoa) 9

Info Box 5.5. Same language is official and national (Burundi) 10

Info Box 5.6. More than one official language (Finland) 10

Info Box 5.7. The 18+1 official or administrative languages of India 10

Info Box 5.8. The official languages of South Africa 10

Info Box 5.9. Support for named non-official languages in the Constitution (South Africa, Philippines, Uganda) 11

Info Box 5.10. Support for unnamed non-official languages in the Constitution (Turkmenistan, Vietnam, China) 11

Info Box 5.11. Language as part of the national culture or cultural heritage (Equador, Vanuatu) 12

Info Box 5.12. Partial support of specific functions (India, Russia) 12

Info Box 5.13. Kurds - human rights violations in Turkey 18

Insert 5.1. English replacing other Big Languages as foreign languages taught in schools 12

Insert 5.2. Physical genocide (from California to the Phillippines to today 13

Insert 5.3. 'If you want to destroy a people, you get their language first'; 'get rid of the language and bring in another language, and that brings in another world view' (Canada) 16

Insert 5.4. Only allowed to talk to son in prison in a language mother does not know (Turkey) 21

Insert 5.5 Swear in Finnish when chopping wood - ears boxed (Sweden) 22

Insert 5.6. Gikuyu in school - caned (Kenya) 22

Insert 5.7. Hausa - caned in school with American principal (Nigeria) 23

Insert 5.8. Pass an object to next pupil - last one punished (Africa, French colonies) 23

Insert 5.9. Kurdish in school - punishment - silent games only (Turkish Kurdistan) 23

Insert 5.10 Count in Polish - punishment - mother spoke only Danish afterwards (Denmark) 23

Insert 5.11. Spanish in school - punishment - mother spoke only English afterwards (USA) 24

Insert 5.12. Several generations forbidden to speak Welsh 24

Insert 5.13. Tuscarora forbidden in school - later hide knowledge of mother tongue (Canada) 25

Insert 5.14. 'Hell's smith' - work houses for Finnish children (Sweden) 26

Insert 5.15. Teacher more important than student (UK) 26

Insert 5.16. 'Acculturate the Navajo' (USA) 26

Insert 5.17. 'Trail of Tears' - permission to see parents denied (USA) 28

Insert 5.18. Not allowed to visit parents, Sámi (Norway) 28

Insert 5.19. Lie to ministry to visit parents, Cree (Canada) 28

Insert 5.20. Ceremonies and rituals forbidden; fines (Canada) 28

Insert 5.21. 'Indian' dance or craft - no food (USA) 28

Insert 5.22. 'never talk about Gaelic football again!' (Northern Ireland); 'I dont know how he came under the title Christian Brother' (Ireland) 29

Insert 5.23. Respect for elders prevents protest (Canada) 29

Insert 5.24. Apology offered (Canada) 30

Insert 5.25. Only private but not formal government apologies (Australia) 31

Insert 5.26. Public refusal by Prime Minister to apologise for slavery or for removing indigenous children from their parents (Denmark) 31

Insert 5.27. Poster: 'Do not speak Sámi or Finnish in your free time. Do not urinate on the stairs' (Norway) 32

Insert 5.28. Poster forbidding speaking other languages than English (UK) 32

Insert 5.29. Minority teachers forbidden to use their own language among themselves (UK) 33

Insert 5.30. Move furniture to prevent minority staff from sitting together (Sweden) 33

Insert 5.31. 'neglect of a child's mother tongue at school is a form of national discrimination' (Germany) 33

Insert 5.32. Sámi joik forbidden for generations - in the 1980's prohibition upheld by some Sámi parents 33

Insert 5.33. Killing the Kaurna language 'the best means of promoting their civilisation' (Australia) 34

Insert 5.34. 'Degeneration, a low cultural level and weak mental capacities, physical and mental stultification' (Sámi, Norway); 'distinguished from beasts only by possessing the bodily human form'; so savage, wild and dirty, disheveled, ugly, small and timid that only because they have the human form is it possible to believe that they belong to mankind' (California) 35

Insert 5.35. 'The Lapps have neither the capacity nor the wish'(Sámi, Norway) 35

Insert 5.36. Norwegianisation of Sámi and Finns for their own welfare (Norway) 36

Insert 5.37. 'a people spiritually and physically undernourished' (Finns and Sámi, Sweden) 36

Insert 5.38. Incapable of learning, lazy, work is a foreign concept, lacking in initiative (indigenous peoples, North and South) 36

Insert 5.39. Racist stereotypes: Finns 'without an inner life force' and 'without a culture or a national will' 36

Insert 5.40. Only Spanish in school - never learn it perfectly - stop speaking Aymara (Bolivia) 37

Insert 5.41. Learning in another language - raped by the government (Zimbabwe) 37

Insert 5.42. 'English-speaking nation' and 'good Swedes' - where did the other languages and identities go? (USA, Sweden) 38

Insert 5.43. 'avoid undue concentrations of immigrant children' (UK, Denmark) 38

Insert 5.44. National system not to perpetuate the different values of immigrant groups (UK) 39

Insert 5.45. National Agenda not to sustain or preserve different cultures (Australia) 39

Insert 5.46. English or not English - feel ashamed (Fesl, Australia; Heugh, South Africa) 39

Insert 5.47. Many African children still 'intellectually unable to cope with a foreign language' 40

Insert 5.48. Latin & Greek are English for a British researcher 40

Insert 5.49. 'we are [still] the superior race, you the beaten and inferior race'(USA) 40

Insert 5.50. Rewards for assimilation combined with sticks (Norway, Sweden) 41

Insert 5.51. 'My dad's boss praised us: 'Good. Good. You must all speak English - like 'Wasungus' 41

Insert 5.52. Prohibition may enhance awareness about rights (UK) 42

Insert 5.53. Maybe we Kurds can adapt to foreign cultures because we were foreigners even in our country and we had to study in a foreign language 43

Insert 5.54. Fighting the system - now multilingual (UK) 43

Insert 5.55. Fighting the system - cannot get married (Hungarian in Romania) 44

Reader Task 5.1. Reflections on 'linguistic genocide' 14

6. GLOBALISATION, POWER AND CONTROL 3

6.1. Ideological reasons - power relations 4

6.1.1. Who has the power and the material resources in the world? 4

6.1.1.1. The growing gaps 4

6.1.1.2. The A team and the B team 5

6.1.1.3. The group with most power 8

6.1.1.4. The -isms: racism, ethnicism, linguicism, classism, sexism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, and ? 9

6.1.1.5. Coarticulation of the -isms 10

6.1.2. Types of power: innate power, resource power, structural power 14

6.1.3. How is power maintained? The relationship between the forms of power 15

6.1.3.1. Idealistic-liberal: power-holders have more being-power 15

6.1.3.2. Materialistic: resources and structural power are mutually convertible 15

6.1.3.3. Social construction of power: A team constructs socially B team non-material resources as invisible or as handicaps 16

6.1.4. Grading of control: sticks, carrots, shame and ideas 18

6.1.4.1. Sticks - physical force 19

6.1.4.2. Shame - psychological force 19

6.1.4.3. Remunerative means: Carrots - bargaining 20

6.1.4.4. Ideological means: Ideas - persuasion 21

6.1.5. Changes and reasons for the changes - have the rulers become nicer? 21

6.1.5.1. The role of language: changes from more physically brutal forms of control to more sophisticated and more psychological forms of control 22

6.1.5.2. Reasons for changes and additions 23

6.1.5.2.1. From external security threats to business 23

6.1.5.2.2. Financial costs 24

6.1.5.2.3. Psychological costs 24

6.1.5.2.4. The chance to escape 25

6.1.5.2.5. The relative visibility/invisibility of the 'enemy' 26

6.1.6. The role of co-option 27

6.2. Political reasons - the 'nation state' 'demands' one language for unity? 28

6.2.1. The mythical nation state: one state, one nation, one language 28

6.2.2. Dismantling the myth of nation-states and ethnic conflict 30

6.3. Economic reasons - the global 'free market'? 34

6.3.1. Globalisation 34

6.3.1.1. Colonialism as an early form of globalisation - a comparison 36

6.3.1.2. From pre-modernity to modernity with the help of Bretton Woods: the World Bank, IMF and structural adjustment programmes 39

6.3.1.3. Shift in power from 'nation-states' and democratically elected bodies to the TNCs and banks 42

6.3.1.4. From active agents in universalisation to agentless globalisation - it 'happens' to us 44

6.3.1.5. The role of the local state in the globalisation era - glocalisation 46

6.3.2. Globalisation, development, education and linguistic diversity 49

6.4. 'Free' markets and human rights 52

Table 6.1. Who has the power and the material resources in the world? 6

Table 6.2. Are labels the same for SHE and HE? 10

Table 6.3. Knowing, not knowing, believing, thinking - gender and education 12

Table 6.4. Students in USA taking SAT 14

Figure 6.1. The social construction of non-material B team resources as non-convertible (as handicaps or as invisible) 16

Table 6.5. From old to new forms of control and oppression 21

Table 6.6. Growing gaps between dream targets and reality: Visegrad 4 countries 49

Table 6.7. Types of basic needs and basic problems 53

Definition Box 6.1. Racism, ethnicism, linguicism, classism, sexism and ageism 9

Definition Box 6.2. Post-modernity versus post-modernism 42

Definition Box 6.3. McDonaldization (Hamelink, Ritzer) 45

Definition Box 6.4. Development (South Commission) 49

Info Box 6.1. 70 countries have income levels lower than 25 years ago 4

Info Box 6.2. Growing disparity between poor and rich in the USA, Britain and Australia 4

Info Box 6.3. What do the richest 20% earn, own, use, eat? 4

Info Box 6.4. 3 families have more private property that 48 countries together; 225 billionaires as much as half the world's population 5

Info Box 6.5. European & American pet food costs alone (112 billion $) could finance basic health and food (85) and education (39) for all in underdeveloped countries 5

Info Box 6.6. Coarticulation of gender, 'race' and class/formal education on the labour market (USA) 11

Info Box 6.7. Coarticulation of sexism and classism reproduced by 'aid' (Africa) 11

Info Box 6.8. Gender and formal education can both coarticulate and cut across (Sweden) 12

Info Box 6.9. Coarticulation of -isms - women in universities 13

Info Box 6.10. Coarticulation - less money to educate minority students 13

Info Box 6.11. Coarticulation of -isms - students in USA taking SAT 14

Info Box 6.12. (What) can I eat and drink? Can I protest legally? Grandchildren? 35

Info Box 6.13. 'devise a pattern ... to maintain this position of disparity ... cease thinking about human rights' (Kennan, USA) 36

Info Box 6.14. From pre-modernity to modernity - sociology classics 40

Info Box 6.15. MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) 40

Info Box 6.16. Prisons (USA) 46

Insert 6.1. 'Uneducated', 'illiterate' and 'developing' - setting the norm 6

Insert 6.2. Coarticulations of racism and sexism 11

Insert 6.3. Coarticulation - speak English, be pink, you are 'educated'. Read Zulu (or Zhosa) - you are not 'educated'. Be dark and poor, speaking English does not help 12

Insert 6.4. Damned if you are - damned if you aren't: Tribals not aboriginal (India) 13

Insert 6.5. Anglo-Americans have democratic and responsible bones (Thatcher) 15

Insert 6.6. 'Standing for power is a millionaire's game' (USA) 16

Insert 6.7. Shame sometimes helps (Sweden, Denmark) 20

Insert 6.8. 'they tell their parents that now they are Turks and don't want primitive Kurdish parents' 20

Insert 6.9. Not understanding 'tables up to 2' - stand the whole day 20

Insert 6.10. Class-war 1917-18 in Finland still remembered 24

Insert 6.11. Australia has one language and one fixed identity? 29

Insert 6.12. 'a race of children ... the purpose ... is to bring them forward to the maturity of the adult - if this is possible at all' (Norway) 37

Insert 6.13. 'We have a hard trail ahead of us in trying to Americanize you and your white brothers' (USA) 37

Insert 6.14. NATO defends Western civilisation (Huntington, USA) 38

Insert 6.15. 'missions de cooperation' in Francophone Africa ... national language education programmes do not seriously threaten the position of French' 38

Insert 6.16. Immigrants into Australia still need to be civilized, as do the Kenyans and the migrant to California 38

Insert 6.17. 'Wanted: a 'good dictator' (a Danish assessment of Ukraine) 39

Insert 6.18. Criminalization of poverty 47

Insert 6.19. New slavery in Denmark? 48

Address Box 6.1. United Nations Development Report Office 5

Reader Task 6.1. Democracy - mutual respect for the will of the people? 3

Reader Task 6.2. Do you belong to both the A team and B the team? 8

Reader Task 6.3. Sexism: same trait - different labels 10

Reader Task 6.4. Consequences of structural adjustment programmes? 41

PART III

STRUGGLE AGAINST LINGUISTIC GENOCIDE AND FOR LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN EDUCATION 2

7. LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS 3

7.1 Introducing Linguistic Human Rights (LHRs) 3

7.1.1. Information on human rights 3

7.1.2. Language rights + human rights = linguistic human rights 4

7.1.3. Some basic definitions 5

7.1.3.1. Indigenous peoples 6

7.1.3.2. Minorities 7

7.1.4. Signing and ratifying human rights instruments - a prerequisite for respect 9

7.2. Delimiting the topic - from language rights to educational linguistic human rights 12

7.2.1. What can and should be regulated - language rights and duties 13

7.2.2. Difference between language rights and linguistic human rights 13

7.2.3. Singling out linguistic human rights in education 14

7.2.4. What should be individual LHRs in education? 15

7.3. A short history of language rights in the West 18

7.4. Systematising language-related rights 22

7.4.1. Combined efforts at systematising needed 22

7.4.2. Degrees of promotion-prohibition and overtness-covertness - an early attempt to analyse national and international instruments 22

7.4.2.1. Presentation of the grid 22

7.4.2.2. An example of overt prohibition of linguistic human rights - Turkey 24

7.4.2.3. Using the grid to analyse national constitutions and some international instruments 29

7.5. What happens to language in educational instruments? 32

7.5.1. Language IS one of the important characteristics on the basis of which discrimination is prohibited... 32

7.5.2. ... but it disappears... 32

7.5.3. ... or is watered down by modifications and alternatives 34

7.5.3.1. Introduction to recent language-related instruments 34

7.5.3.2. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities 35

7.5.3.3. European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages 37

7.5.3.4. Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities 37

7.5.3.5. Draft Universal Declaration on Indigenous Rights 40

7.5.3.6. General assessment of recent provisions 41

7.6. Towards a universal covenant on linguistic human rights? 41

7.6.1. Paths leading towards recent draft instruments 41

7.6.2. The draft Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights and its limitations 42

7.6.2.1. General presentation and beneficiaries 42

7.6.2.2. Rights of language communities and language groups 43

7.6.2.3. Does 'everyone' have language rights? 44

7.7. The hypocrisy of Western states 46

7.7.1. Western states as guardians of human rights? 46

7.7.2. Example Denmark: violations of human rights? 47

7.8. Positive developments 50

7.8.1. UN Human Rights Committee's General Comment on Article 27 50

7.8.2. Peoples Communication Charter 51

7.8.3. The Hague Recommendations Regarding the Education Rights of National Minorities 52

Table 7.1. How many of the 52 Universal Human Rights Instruments had countries ratified by 31st May 1998? 10

Table 7.2. Number of the 31 Council of Europe Human Rights Instruments ratified by each of the 40 member states 12

Table 7.3. Number of the 3 Organization of African Unity Human Rights Instruments ratified by each of the 53 member states 12

Table 7.4. Number of the 14 Organization of American States Human Rights Instruments ratified by each of the 35 member states 12

Table 7.5. What should a universal covenant of LHRs guarantee to individuals? 16

Figure 7.1. Language rights in selected countries and covenants 22

Definition Box 7.1. Indigenous peoples, José R. Martinez Cobo 1987 6

Definition Box 7.2. Indigenous peoples, ILO 169, 1989 7

Definition Box 7.3. Minority (from Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson 1994a). 8

Info Box 7.1. Useful Fact Sheets from the UN Centre for Human Rights 4

Info Box 7.2. Austrian Constitutional Law of 1867, Article 19 19

Info Box 7.3. Examples of degree of overtness in regulations 23

Info Box 7.4. Covert prohibition of LHRs: there are no minorities (Japan, France, Turkey) 24

Info Box 7.5. The Law to Combat Terrorism (3713), Turkey, extracts 25

Info Box 7.6. Protest letter by Terralingua to Turkish Ministers for violating LHRs 26

Info Box 7.7. Suggestions for Amendments to the USA Constitution by Senators Huddleston and Hayakawa 30

Info Box 7.8. Model Law Against Racial Discrimination, UN 33

Info Box 7.9. Linguistic diversity not respected by 103 Heads of State? 34

Info Box 7.10 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Signatures and ratifications 37

Info Box 7.11. Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities: Signatures and ratifications 37

Info Box 7.12. Recife Declaration: Resolution on linguistic rights/ Resolucao sobre direitos linguisticos 42

Info Box 7.13. Denmark supports mother tongue medium teaching in Bolivia - but not in Denmark 47

Info Box 7.14. Denmark violates the human rights of refugees 48

Info Box 7.15. Peoples' Communication Charter, language rights related Articles 51

Insert 7.1. Deprived if you do not know English? Enrichment-oriented versus necessary rights 14

Address Box 7.1. Centre for Human Rights, United Nations Offices at Geneva and New York 4

Address Box 7.2. Electronic resources on Kurdistan, the Kurds, and the Kurdish language 28

Address Box 7.3. News and/or details about some human rights instruments (European Charter, Framework Convention, Universal Declaration) 37

Address Box 7.4. Peoples' Communication Charter 51

Address Box 7.5. OSCE (= Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) High Commissioner on National Minorities 52

Reader Task 7.1. What should be a child's individual educational LHRs? 16

8. LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN EDUCATION? 2

8.1. What kind of 'bilingualism' is the goal in 'bilingual education' programmes? 3

8.2. Key fallacies in the education of dominated communities 5

8.3. 'Non-forms' and 'weak forms' of bilingual education 7

8.3.1. Listing and defining the models 7

8.3.2. 'Non-forms' of bilingual education 8

8.3.2.1. 'Mainstream' monolingual programmes with foreign language teaching 9

8.3.2.2. Submersion programmes 9

8.3.2.3. Segregation programmes 14

8.3.3. Weak models of bilingual education - transitional early-exit and late-exit programmes 15

8.3.4. Universal Primary Education (UPE) and the non-forms and weak forms 16

8.4. Strong forms of bilingual and multilingual education 19

8.4.1. Language (mother tongue) maintenance or language shelter programmes 19

8.4.2. Immersion programmes 26

8.4.3. Two-way bilingual (dual language) programmes 28

8.4.4. Alternate days programmes 29

8.4.5. European Union Schools (plural multilingual) model 29

8.5. Strong models and language policy goals: equality, economics, and enrichment 31

8.6. Principles for educational models which respect linguistic human rights 33

8.7. Contextualising is necessary ... but not enough 40

Table 8.1. Definitions of bilingualism 4

Table 8.2. Results in dominant language after 9 years of a Maintenance Programme for immigrant minority 23

Table 8.3. Overview of subjects in Janulf 1998 24

Table 8.4. Is foreign accent acceptable? Wingstedt 39

Table 8.5. Learning priorities in Revolutionary, Conservative and Reactionary Societies 41

Definition Box 8.1. Definition of bilingualism as an educational goal 5

Definition Box 8.2. Submersion 9

Definition Box 8.3. Segregation 14

Definition Box 8.4. Transitional early-exit and late-exit 15

Definition Box 8.5. Language (mother tongue) maintenance or language shelter 19

Definition Box 8.6. Immersion 26

Definition Box 8.7. Two-way bilingual (dual language) programmes 28

Definition Box 8.8. Alternate days' programmes 29

Info Box 8.1. Overview of non-forms, weak forms and strong forms of bilingual education 8

Info Box 8.2. The M~ori in Aotearoa/New Zealand 20

Info Box 8.3. Finns in Sweden 21

Info Box 8.4. 'None of those who had been in the Swedish classes spoke Finnish with their children' (Pirjo Janulf) 24

Info Box 8.5. Legal provisions for maintenance programmes: James Bay Cree and Inuits in Québec 25

Info Box 8.6. Legal provisions for maintenance programmes: national minorities, Hungary 25

Info Box 8.7. Students prejudiced against understanding non-native teachers - try to improve students' attitudes (Rubin); make them aware of the subordination model and standard language ideology (Lippi-Green) 37

Info Box 8.8. Resistance towards non-native teachers (Wingstedt, Sweden; Jaakkola, Finland) 39

Insert 8.1. 'one must surely be able to be bi-countrial too' 3

Insert 8.2. Sociolinguistic situations and repertoires of Deaf communities 10

Insert 8.3. Continuous 'segregated' education beneficial for Deaf and hearing impaired students (Lawenius & Andersson, Sweden) 11

Insert 8.4. Johannes Marainen (Sweden) 12

Insert 8.5. Means used to get a transitional programme started in Calistoga, California 15

Address Box 8.1. Resources about early foreign language learning including immersion and two-way programmes 27

9. ALTERNATIVES TO GENOCIDE AND DYSTOPIA 1

9.1. Weak forms and non-forms of 'bilingual' education amount to genocide by 'forcibly transferring children of the group to another group' (from the UN Genocide Convention) 1

9.2. Minority language - both right and resource in states with civic pluralism and no ethnic state identity 2

9.3. Diversity or homogenisation? Localisation or globalisation? 3

9.4. Do arguments help? 9

9.5. To conclude 10

Figure 9.1. Alternative responses to socio-economic, techno-military and political structural changes 4

Table 9.1. Diffusion of English and Ecology of languages paradigms 5

Table 9.2. Basic tenets of the bioregional and industrio-scientific paradigms 5

Insert 9.1 Culture of tolerance and silence 8

Insert 9.2 'Get off my toes, you bloody bastard!' 8

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Esperanto Bibliography

Author/Person Index

Languages and Peoples Index

Countries/States Index

Subject Index

Linguistic genocide in education - worldwide diversity or human rights?

Tove Skutnabb-Kangas

Outline of the book

What is this book about? Here is a short description.

Languages are today being killed and linguistic diversity is disappearing at a much faster pace than ever before in human history, and relatively much faster than biodiversity. The book starts with a short exposé of the present 'health' situation of the world's languages and the prospects for them during the next few generations. The conclusion is that the future looks grim - if things continue, we may kill over 90 percent of the world's oral languages in the next one hundred years.

It is claimed that linguistic and cultural diversity are as necessary for the existence of our planet as biodiversity. They are correlated: where one type is high, the other one is too. There seems to be mounting evidence that the relationship between linguistic and cultural diversity on the one hand and biodiversity on the other hand is not only correlational but might be causal. Theories of human-environment coevolution have been proposed, including the assumption that cultural diversity might enhance biodiversity or vice versa. Therefore it is argued that the preservation of the world's linguistic diversity must be an essential goal in any bioculturally-oriented diversity conservation program.

Indigenous peoples and minorities are the main bearers of linguistic and cultural diversity in the world - over 80% of the world's languages exist in one country only and the median language has no more than 5,000 speakers. Some of the direct main agents of linguistic (and cultural) genocide today are parts of what we call the consciousness industry: formal educational systems and the mass media (including television, 'cultural nerve gas' as Michael Krauss (1992: 6) has called it). The book shows that the education of most minorities and indigenous peoples in the world is organised in ways which both counteract sound scientific principles and lead to the disappearance of linguistic and cultural diversity.

Schools are every day committing linguistic genocide. They do it according to the United Nations definition of this phenomenon, in the final draft of what in 1948 became the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. They also do it by forcibly moving children from one group (indigenous or minority) to another group (the dominant group) through linguistic and cultural forced assimilation in schools. Theories in several fields for understanding how and why this is happening are developed and discussed in some detail, including clarification of concepts like mother tongue, ethnicity, integration. Practices (including educational models) leading to linguistic genocide are described and analysed, with numerous examples from all over the world.

This inevitably includes a consideration of power relations. The book shows how the formal educational systems participate in maintaining and reproducing unequal power relations, here especially between linguistic minorities and others, but also more generally, and how the ways of doing this have changed and are constantly changing, and how control and domination are resisted and alternatives are constantly created and negotiated, managed and controlled, and recreated. The deficiency-based models that are used in most minority education invalidate the linguistic and cultural capital of minority children and their parents and communities. They make the resources of dominated groups seem handicaps or deficiencies, instead of valued and validated non-material resources, or they render them invisible and therefore not possible to convert into material resources and positions of structural power. This happens just as much in global international relations and the Mcdonaldization of the world as it happens in ESL classrooms.

Through glorification, the non-material resources of the dominant groups, including the dominant languages and cultures, and maybe specifically English, are presented as better adapted to meet the needs of 'modern', technologically developed, democratic post-industrial information-driven societies - and this is what a substantial part of ESL (English as a Second Language) ideology is about. English and other dominant languages tend to be projected as the languages of modernity, science and technology, success, national 'unity', democracy, and other such positive features.

The non-material resources of the dominated groups, for instance minorities and indigenous peoples, including their languages and cultures, are stigmatised as being traditional, backward, narrow and inferior; they are marginalised, deprived of resources for their development and use. In this way they are made invisible, or socially constructed as handicaps rather than resources.

The relationship between the dominant and the dominated, the A-team and the B-team, is rationalised so that what the dominant group and its representatives do is always presented as beneficial for the dominated. This can then serve to legitimate and reproduce the unequal access to power and resources and present those with more access as 'helping' those with less.

Processes of globalisation, the increasing insecurity and the growing gaps between haves on the one hand and have-nots and never-to-haves on the other (a 20%-80% world) are analysed in order to understand some of the macro-level factors in power relationships and contemporary changes. The 'free market' ideology, more a political dogma than an economic system, erodes democracy by shifting power from states and democratically elected bodies to transnational corporations and banks, while 'demanding' homogenisation and killing diversity. Globalisation is a killing agent.

When the present situation in the educational system and some reasons for it have been assessed, alternatives will be looked into. One necessary tool in the remedies could be linguistic human rights (LHRs). It is claimed (following Katarina Tomaševski) that the duty of human rights is to overrule the law of supply and demand and to remove price tags from people and from basic necessities for their survival and for a dignified life, including education, and that linguistic human rights are central to this. Human rights should act as a corrective to the 'free market'. But they are powerless unless two unlikely changes happen. Firstly, major redistribution of the world's material resources and structural power is a prerequisite for implementation of human rights. Secondly, for this redistribution to happen, civil society needs to take back the control of economy which has been given away to the transnational corporations and the financial giants in the globalisation process.

Linguistic human rights are a necessary (but not sufficient) prerequisite for the maintenance of linguistic diversity. Violations of linguistic human rights, especially in education, lead to a reduction of linguistic and cultural diversity on our planet. The human rights system is analysed so as to see which linguistic human rights in education are protected today, regionally in Europe, and globally. After a critical look at the formulations in most of the central instruments, the assessment is that language in education systematically gets a poorer treatment than other basic human characteristics. Very few international or regional human rights instruments grant binding educational linguistic human rights, despite pious phrases. The present binding linguistic human rights in education clauses are completely insufficient for protecting and maintaining linguistic diversity on our globe, even if there are a few recent positive developments.

The language (and cultural) rights of linguistic majorities are not being met either: formal education does not make the bulk of dominant group children high level multilinguals, or truly multicultural, or even appreciative of linguistic and cultural diversity. Education systems reflect monolingual reductionism or monolingual stupidity/naivety where monolingualism (possibly with some foreign language learning) is seen as normal, inevitable, desirable and sufficient.

Finally, some very recent more positive human rights instruments are presented. Alternative educational models are described which lead to high levels of bilingualism or multilingualism for both minorities and majorities and which respect linguistic human rights.

The structure of this book is as follows. After an introduction, describing some of the philosophical and methodological underpinnings and problems in the book, Part I sets the scene. Chapter 1 describes the present situation of the world's languages, problematising their fate and our lack of knowledge about them. Chapter 2 outlines parallels and links between linguistic and cultural diversity and biodiversity and the threats that all three types of diversity face. Chapter 3 defines and analyses a number of central concepts, such as mother tongue(s), culture, ethnicity, assimilation and integration, right to naming one's linguistic and ethnic identities, and the role of language for control and domination and for resistance and self-determination. Chapter 4 asks what the benefits and drawbacks of linguistic diversity are and analyses the ideology of monolingual reductionism.

Part II sets out to investigate linguistic genocide at a more societal level, analysing state policies and globalisation. Chapter 5 looks at language policies of states, more generally and specifically in education, and describes how linguistic genocide in education happens in practice. It also compares two views on how languages disappear - do they die or are they killed? Chapter 6 discusses power and control, and changes in forms of control in the present phase of globalisation, with special attention to the role of language in domination and control. It outlines how 'free markets' respond to the world's problems and to change.

Part III is about the struggle against linguistic genocide and for linguistic human rights in education. Chapter 7 discusses an alternative response to the problems outlined, namely what human rights have to offer. It scrutinizes human rights instruments to see whether we have sufficient linguistic human right, especially in education, to prevent linguistic genocide and to maintain linguistic diversity. The answer is a negative one - the human rights system is at present completely insufficient. Chapter 8 looks at educational models, asking how formal education should be organised to lead to high levels of multilingualism, and in order to respect linguistic human rights. The concluding Chapter 9 claims that present indigenous and minority education continues to 'forcibly transfer children of the group to another group', something that qualifies as genocide under the UN Genocide Convention. Several prerequisites for the macro-level political changes which are needed to prevent this, are outlined, and it is claimed that they are necessary for the planet to have a future.

The losers, if the changes outlined do not happen, are not only the 80 percent of the world's population, who at present consume only 20 percent of the resources. The losers are humanity and the planet. Quoting Edward Goldsmith, I want to remind you that 'environment' means biological, linguistic and cultural environment. In his words (1996: 91),

'there is no evidence that trade or economic development are of any great value to humanity ... The environment, on the other hand, is our greatest wealth, and to kill it, as the TNCs [transnational companies] are methodically doing, is an act of unparalleled criminality.' The only hope today seems to be that the TNC leaders might realise that it is not in the interest of their grandchildren either because 'there can be no trade and no economic development on a dead planet'.

For additional information, contact me on email (see main page)

Last updated: January 2006

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