LINGUIST List 11.2075

Fri Sep 29 2000

Review: Kontra et al: Language, A Right and Resource

Editor for this issue: Andrew Carnie <carnielinguistlist.org>



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  • Angela Bartens, Kontra et al. Review

    Message 1: Kontra et al. Review

     Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 13:49:29 +0800
    From: Angela Bartens <Angela.Bartenshelsinki.fi>
    Subject: Kontra et al. Review


    Kontra, Miklos, Robert Phillipson, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas & Tibor Varady (eds.) (1999): Language: A Right and Resource: Approaching Linguistic Human Rights. Budapest: Central European University Press. 346 pages. Hardcover US $ 49.95 / GB � 31.95, paperback US $ 23.95 / GB � 14.95.

    Reviewed by Angela Bartens, University of Helsinki.

    The volume under review reunites the papers presented at a conference on Linguistic Human Rights (LHR) in Budapest, Hungary, in October 1997. At the same time, it is a state-of-the-art panorama of the (sub-)field of LHR which has gained impetus especially over the past decade. Situated on a chronological continuum somewhere between Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson (eds., 1994) and Skutnabb-Kangas (2000), it testifies to the progress made since the "early days" of LHR research.

    LHR are diagnostic of the post-modernist quest for a new society initiated in the post-Cold War years. Although LHR research is multidisciplinary by definition, the integration of insights from several disciplines, above all law, economics, and sociolinguistics, has become much more successful over the years as individual researchers have tried to learn from each other. One of the main assets of this collection of papers is the extent to which it embodies the multi- and cross-disciplinary efforts made by those concerned with LHR. Another major focus of the collection is the affirmation that language (and its use) is both a right and a resource.

    Synopsis

    After the "Introduction: Conceptualising and Implementing Linguistic Human Rights" (pp.1-21) authored by the editors of the volume, the book is divided into five thematic sections according to the predominant perspective from which LHR are approached.

    The first section, "General issues", starts with Robert Phillipson's discussion of "International Languages and International Human Rights" (pp. 25-46). He portrays the international hegemony English has reached in spite of lip service to multiple working languages in international organizations such as the UN and the EU. Although Phillipson admits that he has become aware of Esperanto only recently (p. 34), his paper is also a plea for re-examining the potential of Esperanto as a democratic international language. In "Heroes, Rebels, Communities and States in Language Rights Activism and Litigation" (pp. 47-80), Angeline Martel explores the potential of litigation in the quest for LHR from the Canadian perspective, or, more accurately, from the perspective of the Francophone minorities outside Quebec. After demonstrating the reciprocal relationship between ideology and law on the one hand and ideology and activism on the other, she proceeds to show how activism can have a major impact on the law through litigation in many if not all democracies and strongly urges other minority groups to engage in this battle. In "'Don^�t Speak Hungarian in Public!' - a Documentation and Analysis of Folk Linguistic Rights" (pp. 81-97), Miklos Kontra highlights the importance of considering, studying, and eventually changing folk beliefs both in the majority and in the minority populations as a prerequisite for implementing LHR. According to his findings in Hungarian-speaking minority communities, the most powerful and recurring arguments brought against codified LHR are intelligibility, speak-X-in-X-land, and "the bread reason" (you/we eat X-ish bread so you/we should speak X- ish). "The Common Language Problem" by Mart Rannut (pp. 99-114) examines the relationships between language, power and society in time and as reflected in three language-policy models: language spread, nation building, and minority-language protection. Although the main focus has to remain on the power relationship between nation building and minority-language protection in the modern world, he ends his paper by calling for a multiple language planning model which will also include the dimension of language spread and be constrained by LHR.

    The second section of the volume is dedicated to "Legal issues". Fernand de Varennes examines "The Existing Rights of Minorities in International Law" (pp. 117-146). The first observation non-lawyers have to come to terms with is how ambigious and subject to interpretation law is and how much of it belongs to the "being nice" category as opposed to categorically enforceable laws. Second, international law may come to the rescue of those who are not protected by national laws. Significant progress has been made since The Charter of the United Nations (1945) and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) where language is not mentioned at all and even the state of affairs reported on in Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson (1994), for example the 1996 Barcelona Universal Declaration of Linguistic Human Rights or the 1996 The Hague Recommendations Regarding the Education Rights of National Minorities & Explanatory Note. And yet, Article 27 of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966/1994) still grants the best legally binding protection of language minorities and the implementation of LHR still leaves much to be desired on the global scale even when the existence of national and regional differences is recognized (cf. also Skutnabb-Kangas p. 212 in this volume). Bart Driessen's "The Slovak State Language Law as a Trade Law Problem" (pp. 147-165) is an interesting case study where the author convincingly argues that in the absence of an effective system protecting the rights of minorities such as the Hungarians in Slovakia, both national and international trade law provisions greatly enhance them.

    The third section focuses on "Market issues". In the first paper, "Market Forces, Language Spread and Linguistic Diversity" (pp. 169- 186), Francois Grin disproves the widely held and naive view that market forces are alone responsible for the spread of some languages and the decline of others. As a matter of fact, he demonstrates that the initial impetus of language spread has to be traced to non- market forces and that market forces may actually help preserve a qualified, albeit not unrestricted form of diversity. This point is illustrated from the Gaeltacht where the "Gaillimh le Gaeilge" project initiated in 1988 has successfully combined the promotion of English-Irish bilingualism and the generation of income. Grin ends his paper with the optimistic hope that the "Recognition of non- material goals, such as environmental quality or linguistic diversity, can usefully put some priorities back into place: market forces are there to serve welfare, not the other way round." (p. 184). This optimism is not shared by Tove Skutnabb-Kangas who in the following paper addresses "Linguistic Diversity, Human Rights and the 'Free' Market" (pp. 187-222). According to her, human rights (political, economic, social and cultural) including LHR and the "free" market are incompatible because the "free" market eliminates the basis for human rights. As "free" market policies exempt economy from public control by over-ruling the sovereignty of individual states, a number of changes are brought about which are frequently subsumed under the effects of globalization: environmental degradation, linguicism and cultural genocide, growing economic and social inequalities, etc. These, in turn, create insecurity and conflict (Skutnabb-Kangas cites linguicism and cultural genocide as fundamental causes of ethnic conflicts and wars, p. 202) which provoke new waves of centralization, homogenization and contempt for human rights. The devastating effects of World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs to human rights, quoted in this (p. 195) as in many other studies, are just an example. In short, while there is a gross conflict of interests between free market forces and human rights, it can only be hoped that human rights will serve as correctives to the free market. However, unless a radical redistribution of resources occurs at the same time, future prospects for mankind are bleak. As far as linguistic diversity is concerned, this implies the linguicism of 90% of the world's oral languages by the year 2100. Which may be fatal in a sense quite unexpected to the layman: while early research recognized a correlation between cultural and linguistic diversity and biodiversity, there is growing evidence for the reciprocal causality of the relationship (cf. also Skutnabb-Kangas 2000, Ch. 2). Ironically enough, the menace globalization and free market forces represent to biodiversity continues to receive much more attention than the menace cultural and linguistic diversity is under. Amir Hassanpour's contribution "Language Rights in the Emerging World Linguistic Order: The State, the Market and Communication Technologies" (pp. 223-241) documents the rise (starting in May 1994) and (erstwhile, cf. "Postcript (July 1999)", pp. 237-239) fall of a virtual Kurdish state by means of Med-TV, a private satellite television station. Interestingly enough, this virtual state was able to grant its "citizens" the enjoyment of language rights in a way unprecedented in the history of the Kurdish people. It can be read as a sequel to Skutnabb-Kangas & Bucak (1994).

    The fourth section examines "Language planning issues". Uldis Ozolins discusses "Separating Language from Ethnicity: The Paradoxes of Strict Policies and Increasing Social Harmony in the Baltic States" (pp. 245-262). Since the Baltic states regained their independence in 1991, the language and (in the case of Estonia and Latvia) related citizenship policies have attracted the criticism of the international community and a succession of visits by commissions representing international organizations and charged to investigate the situation. As a matter of fact, the Baltic states constitute a rare case where the present so-called majority languages continue to suffer from the minorization of the Soviet period to an extent where official monolingualism is the only policy which will guarantee the maintenance of the so-called majority languages while a continuation of the Soviet policy of bilingualism with Russian would have lead to the inevitable eradication of Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian. It has to be born in mind that speakers of Russian and other minority languages for example have access to mother tongue education. At independence in 1991, Estonian and Latvian were more severely menaced by Russian than Lithuanian; hence the tying of access to citizenship to proficiency in the majority language in Estonia and Latvia but not in Lithuania. There has not been any ultimative verdict from the international community. However, it is significant that ethnic tension in the Baltic states has actually decreased during the 1990es. Another issue largely ignored in the international debate is that the rate of application for naturalization among those eligible has been surprisingly low as many residents seem to have personal reasons for not trading their old Soviet passports for the citizenship of a Baltic state. In "Language Policy in a Changing Society: Problematic Issues in the Implementation of International Linguistic Human Rights" (pp. 263-276), Ina Druviete concentrates on the case of Latvia. First, she discusses language use in private enterprises and companies and concludes that this is not a case where LHR protecting the use of language in the private sphere should apply. In the second part of her paper, she argues that the inflection and translitteration of foreign names belong to "processes pertaining to the language system" (p. 274). Whether this is true in the case of translitteration is, of course, debatable.

    The final section of the collection deals with "Education and ethnicity issues". Istvan Muzsnai discusses "The Recognition of Sign Language: A Threat or the Way to a Solution?" in Hungary (pp. 279- 296). One of the main problems is the difficulty of distinguishing medically deaf from hard-of-hearing children at an early age. Csanyi, an influential educator of the deaf in Hungary, has therefore recommended early education through the acoustic channel for both groups. However, as Muzsnai argues, this deprives young medically deaf children of their LHR. Muznai makes a case for bilingual education for the deaf in Hungary at all levels; it remains to be seen how long this will take to become a reality. Andrea Szalai addresses "Linguistic Human Rights Problems among Romani and Boyash Speakers in Hungary with Special Attention to Education" (pp. 297-315). In the socialist era, the Gypsy population of Hungary (altogether 0,32 million or 3% of the entire national population in 1971 and 0,5 million or 5% in 1993-94) was regarded as a social problem rather than a minority and assimilation was seen as the only path to integration. Little difference was made between native speakers of Romani and Boyash who according to the 1971 survey represented 21% and 8% of the Gypsy population, respectively. However, Boyash detached itself from the Romani language at least 150 years ago and now constitutes a separate language which is why the Boyash use "Gypsy" as their external self-definition. As a matter of fact, post-1989 language-planning efforts have focused on Romani and Boyash as separate languages. However, the language certificates which it has been possible to take in Romani and in Boyash since 1992 and 1996, respectively, both certify that the holder has passed an exam in the "Gypsy language". The Hungarian Minority and Education Acts of 1993 both grant LHR to the Gypsies but the implementation of these rights continues to reflect the old view of Gypsies not as a minority but as a social problem. In addition, the misconception that all Hungarian Gypsies are bilingual leads to cases of serious violation of LHR. Szalai sees the most urgent tasks in the harmonization of status and corpus planning measures. In the realm of corpus planning and implementation, speakers of Boyash find themselves in a disadvantaged position vis- a-vis speakers of Romani since no high register of Boyash existed previous to the 1990es. The topic of the last paper by Klara Sandor is "Contempt for Linguistic Human Rights in the Service of the Catholic Church: The Case of the Csangos" (pp. 317-331). The Csangos are speakers of roofless dialects of Hungarian who migrated from Hungaria to Moldavia, Rumania, in two waves (14th-15th and 16th-18th centuries). The Catholic religion constitutes the core element of their ethnic identity and it is only for this reason that the Catholic Church and the Vatican have been able to exert the key role in the linguicism of Csango: today, 62 000 out of a total of 240 000 Csangos are bilingual in Csango Hungarian and Rumanian while the rest are monolingual speakers of the national language. Rome took over all Catholic activities in Moldavia in the early 17th century and it can be said that the Csangos have been isolated from speakers of other dialects of Hungarian since then. Today, intelligibility with Transylvanian Hungarian is practically not given; unlike the Hungarians of Transylvania, the Csangos are not recognized as a minority in Rumania. The Rumanian state argues that they are "Hungarianized Rumanians" who must be assimilated. Until recently, the Vatican has acted according to the mirror argument that Rumanians are Catholics turned Othodox who should be reintegrated into the Catholic Church. By consequence, the linguicism of Csango is a result of a conspiracy between the Vatican and its local representatives and the Rumanian state.

    In addition to the contributions mentioned, the volume obviously contains a Table of Contents (pp. v-vi), Lists of Maps (p. vii), Tables (pp. vii-viii), Figures (p. viii), the Contributors (pp. ix- xi, with short biographic notes), and an Index (pp. 332-346).

    Evaluation

    As indicated above, the collection under review is a state-of-the- art presentation of the field of LHR. It testifies both to the progress which has been made and to the immense body of work which lies ahead. It also testifies to methodological progress: multi- and cross-disciplinary approaches are now starting to bear fruit as those interested in LHR who, by necessity, come from various fields of study, have sought more profound understanding and integration of the contributions of each other�s fields. A particular gain of this collection also lies in the integration of the approaches of "language as a right" and "language as a resource" which before seemed clearly distinct if not incompatible. The choice of papers serves the reader with both overviews of general issues and case studies of particular situations where LHR are at stake. Doubtlessly the venue of the conference is at the origin of a concentration of case studies on Hungarian and Central European issues which constitutes a welcome addition to language/geographic areas such as the Baltic states more frequently dealt with in recent LHR literature. There is very little to say in terms of criticism. The collection under review cannot convey an integral picture of the complex field of LHR and research on them nor does it pretend to do so. I am persuaded that it will get more people from different fields interested and involved in LHR and in so doing, it will have attained a very valuble goal. This collection makes for both demanding and rewarding reading - actually, several readings. Speaking of which: this may of course lie in the eye of the beholder, but for some reason I missed a definition of LHR adopted by all authors, especially as opposed to "language rights" which are presumedly more far-reaching and less binding than LHR (cf. Skutnabb-Kangas 2000:498). The two terms appear to be used almost interchangeably by some authors of the volume under review. As far as my review copy was concerned, a slight disappointment was constituted by the fact that pp. 275-290 were missing and that I found it impossible to get in touch with the editing company to have this state of affairs remedied as e-mail messages sent to addresses indicated on the back cover as well as on the web pages of the company kept bouncing back. Obviously e-mail still is not the predominant mode of communication in most parts of the world but I could not help lamenting how many people might thus be deterred from ordering this excellent book.

    References

    Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove (2000): Linguistic Genocide in Education Or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove & Serta Bucak (1994): "Killing a mother tongue - how the Kurds are deprived of linguistic human rights". In: Tove Skutnabb-Kangas & Robert Phillipson (eds.), 347-370.

    Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove & Robert Phillipson (1994): "Linguistic human rights, past and present." In: Tove Skutnabb-Kangas & Robert Phillipson (eds.), 71-110.

    Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove & Phillipson, Robert (eds.), in collaboration with Mart Rannut (1994): Linguistic Human Rights. Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination. (Contributions to the Sociology of Language 67.) Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

    The Reviewer: Dr.phil. Angela Bartens is Docent of Iberoromance Philology at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include language contact including pidgins and creoles, sociolinguistics and applied sociolinguistics including language planning. E-mail: Agela.Bartenshelsinki.fi