According to recent accounts ‘one half of our planet’s population speaks one or more of the 23 “top” languages, the other half speak the remaining 7,074’.1 In other words, most of the world’s languages are to some degree threatened. Under the effect of globalization, the pressure of dominant languages on minority languages is relentless, partly because many users of smaller languages can see more opportunities if they switch to a dominant one. Such homogenizing trends are also at play in countries, where cross-border migrants are expected to become proficient in their host language. However, from the Arctic to Latin America, through Europe to New Zealand, there is also considerable resilience among minority language speakers, who wish to reclaim their own language in spite of prevailing global pressures.
Given these conflicting and overlapping forces, the time is ripe to assemble the latest research from a wide range of different relevant disciplines, in order to explain and understand the challenges to both minority policy actors and community identities in the face of migration, mobility, and globalizing influences.
It is an immense privilege to have been able to assemble in this Handbook’s perspectives by renowned scholars in international law, social anthropology, history, linguistics, education, and economics. Among the topics covered are the politics of recognition and autonomy, the role of economic and linguistic markets, the potential of social media and new speakers, language revitalization and shift, and the continuing debate over the use of minority languages in education. These chapters offer a compelling treatment of the complexity of issues in the legal, educational, and policy fields that affect minority language communities around the world today.
One of the problems facing those interested in this field of study is that a plethora of definitions is used to shape approaches to minority language speakers and their rights, as applied in instruments and standards at regional and international levels. Such differences are rooted in diverging attitudes towards minority language speakers. Varying concepts of justice and law have resulted from changing power dynamics. Unpeeling such different understandings on what constitutes a minority, by whom, where, and under what circumstances is the red thread that runs throughout this collection.
For the most part, the concept of ‘minority language communities’ is used to describe numerically inferior groups of people who speak a language different from that of the majority in a given country, who are in a non-dominant position, and, to some extent, who seek to preserve their distinct linguistic identity. The term is based chiefly on factual criteria, which means a minority language community in a particular country (e.g. speakers of German in Hungary or Denmark) may constitute a majority in a kin state (i.e. Austria or Germany).
This collection is divided into seven parts, as follows: Minority language rights, protection, governance (Part I); recognition, self-determination, autonomy (Part II); migration, settlement, mobility (Part III); economics, markets, commodification (Part IV); education, literacy, access (Part V); media, public usage, visibility (Part VI); endangerment, ecosystems, resilience (Part VII). The Handbook’s 22 chapters that are summarized below present richly detailed accounts on the history and the current state of particular minority language contexts across the world. Our hope is that these chapters shine a critical light on broad areas of concern surrounding minority language communities today.
Part I: Minority Language Rights, Protection, Governance
The first set of chapters (2, 3, and 4) considers different definitions and applications of minority language rights and standards. Language is central to human nature and is an expression of identity. As such, issues surrounding language are particularly important to linguistic minority communities who seek to maintain their identity. Securing rights for the minority can require legislation and standards to be put in place in contexts where the minorities are subjected to marginalization, exclusion, and discrimination. Fernand de Varennes and Elżbieta Kuzborska set the scene by focussing our attention on the various (and at times almost contradictory) understandings of minority-related concepts involved in different supra-national regimes. The fundamental questions in their chapter are as follows: What are the minorities intended to be, the holders of language rights or the beneficiaries of state obligations? And what is the extent and nature of such rights? The authors show how the use of terms is fraught with uncertainties, disagreements, and contradictions from the perspective of international law. Examples include ‘national minorities’ versus ‘minorities’, ‘protection of linguistic-cultural diversity’ versus ‘protection of the human rights of minorities’, and designations such as ‘indigenous’ versus ‘autochtonous’ minorities. They unravel some of the disparate positions that underpin these notions ranging from divergent points of view as to what constitutes a minority, to the substance and objectives being addressed in international and regional instruments by the protection of minorities or minority rights. Taking a long look at ‘minority rights’ at the supra-national level, the authors also consider some of the challenges in the future.
An example of such challenges is Russia. With its unusual federal, ethnic, and linguistic mixture this country has a history of compliance and conflict with international minority language rights standards. In his chapter Bill Bowring explores minority language legislation, rights, and practices within the Federation’s unique multilingual structure. He sketches developments in the Russian Empire and the USSR, traces the consequences of the collapse of the USSR and the ‘parade of sovereignties’ of 1990–1992, and then introduces the Constitution of 1993 and its radical provisions. Paying particular attention to the situation of the Volga Tatars in Tatarstan, he supplies a precise comparative analysis of the policy towards minority languages and communities in the state. He discusses the similarities and differences amongst the subjects of Russia’s constitutionally asymmetric Federation and explores the extent to which the situation in Tatarstan is different from that in the fellow republics. He goes on to show how there has been a significant shift away under President Putin from special status for ‘national’, ethnic languages in the context of the Federation. The chapter concludes with the dramatic events of the past few years and considers how matters stand at the time of writing, asking: Will these recent developments in language policy mean the end of diversity in Russia?
Another complex language scenario is in Ireland. An uneven framework exists there that offers Irish mostly limited or symbolic protection. Whilst overtly, the pre-eminence of Irish is anchored constitutionally and is reflected in aspects of public discourse, covertly natio...