The handbook of linguistic human rights

Abstract

The handbook of linguistic human rights, edited by Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and Robert Phillipson, two eminent language rights scholars, presents a variety of approaches, issues, policies, and case studies in countries from around the world related to the study of what the editors and most of the authors in this volume call ‘linguistic human rights.’ This concept intails, for example, that children, indigenous and immigrant alike, have the inalienable right to learn their parents’ or ancestor’s languages in elementary school. Notably, proponents of linguistic human rights often advocate for the use of intensive language immersion programs to teach languages to children as this method is widely believed by experts in language education to offer the best learning environment to achieve fluency and keep the language alive, especially for indigenous children. Often, immersion means the creation of ‘language nests,’ where children and language beginners learn from proficient speakers, usually tribal elders. Initially, language nests were established in New Zealand by Māori elders who wished to teach children their native language. This model was subsequently adopted in Hawaii and by other indigenous groups throughout the world, including the Cherokee in Oklahoma. The Handbook of Linguistic Human Rights discusses approaches to language rights (e.g., in international law, political theory, economic policy, (de)coloniality, educational policy, etc.) and presents numerous case studies in countries from around the world where language rights are implemented or violated by scholars, jurists, activists, officers and staff at national and indigenous parliaments, governments and international organizations. Both editors, as well as many of the authors in this book, appear to subscribe to the notion that the language rights of linguistic minorities (both local and immigrant) are broad, absolute, and inalienable (hence the use of the qualifier ‘human’ before ‘rights’). Thus, for example, they often uphold the right of allminority children to learn their parents’ and ancestors’ language(s) in elementary school through some sort of mother tongue medium of instruction program. Yet, although this is a worthwhile goal, it remains an aspirational one, mainly because of the logistical and pedagogical problems involved in teaching dozens of languages in schools attended by large and diverse populations of immigrant children, for example, in the Oslo schools where more than 120 languages are spoken; in the Gothenburg schools where 75 languages could be traced among primary school children; or in the schools of the Faroe Islands where there are about 300 immigrant children from some 50 different countries. This, of course, should not be used as an excuse for not providing any bilingual education programs in the schools, especially as regards widely spoken immigrant languages such as Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, Polish, etc., which are spoken by tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of children in the schools of Scandinavia