Linguistic rights

Linguistic rights (or language rights or linguistic human rights) are the human and civil rights concerning the individual and collective right to chose the language or languages for communicating in a private or public atmosphere, regardless ethnicity or nationality or the number of the speakers of a language in a given territory.

Linguistic rights include the right to legal, administrative and judicial acts, education, and the media in a language understood and freely chosen by those concerned. They are a means of resisting forced cultural assimilation and linguistic imperialism, especially in the context of protection of minorities and indigenous peoples.

Linguistic rights in international law are usually dealt in the broader framework of cultural and educational rights.

Important documents for linguistic rights include the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.

References

• T Skutnabb-Kangas & R Phillipson, Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994.

External links

• Linguistic Human Rights: A Sociolinguistic Introduction by Prof. Peter L. Patrick, Department of Language & Linguistics, University of Essex