In 1995, the Esperantic Studies Foundation awarded a grant to the Canadian Centre for Linguistic Rights for a conference dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. This nearly 700-page set of proceedings bears testimony to an exceptionally broad range of perspectives and an impressive depth of scholarship, which should place it high on the reading list of anyone interested in the international dimensions of language rights and linguistic diversity. If it has a major weakness, it is that the attempt to cover so many issues within a single volume means that none can be treated with the thoroughness it deserves.
THE UNITED NATIONS: FRIEND OR FOE? The United Nations emerges from these pages in a somewhat contradictory light. Few speakers appear to doubt that the UN provides the essential cornerstone for the international definition and promotion of linguistic and cultural rights. In a particularly striking contribution, Aboriginal scholar Marie Battiste ("Post-colonial Míkmaq Language Development Strategies") refers to her people's painstaking translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a process of "social development placing the best concepts of the post-colonial era into Míkmaq consciousness" (482). Other speakers, despite reservations about the success of the UN to date in guaranteeing the rights of minorities, tend to share this view of the Organization as an essentially progressive one.
Nonetheless this collection provides ample support for a more pessimistic picture of the UN. In one keynote address ("UN Norms Relating to Language"), Irit Weiser, a senior counsel to the Canadian Ministry of Justice, argues that the UN's focus on universality led it to abandon important minority rights standards established by the League of Nations, particularly the practice of developing detailed binding treaties dealing with specific situations. In another keynote, Robert Phillipson ("The UN Agenda for Development: The Role of Languages") claims that the UN's declared goal of respecting and promoting cultural diversity is not supported by its actual policies and programs, which serve to entrench dominant languages and marginalize others. Two forward-looking papers from the final plenary session (Yves Le Bouthillier, "Réflexions sur les insuffisances des instruments internationaux relatifs à la langue"; Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, "Promotion of Linguistic Tolerance and Development") question the effectiveness of key UN minority rights instruments and call for much stronger measures against linguistic discrimination. Such contributions lead one to question whether the UN has not become yet another attachment on the bulldozer of modernism, or at best a hoe to be used for arranging the world in neat little national plots.
INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS: A LOW PRIORITY? The UN also comes in for some criticism regarding its own official language policy. Humphrey Tonkin ("Language Hierarchy at the UN") follows his historical review with the question, "Why have a policy at all?":
The official United Nations treats six languages as though they are in all respects the same, even though they are manifestly different and used in different spheres. It treats them as though they are equal, which, both inside and outside the United Nations, they are not. It treats them as though they are mutually intelligible by their users without the mediating intervention of the language services, yet most of their users, by virtue of education or selection to serve in New York, in fact communicate in English. And the Organization's system of dues makes no distinction between member-states who benefit from the use of the six languages and those who do not. São Tomé and Principe pays according to the same dues structure as, say, St. Lucia, even though, with its Portuguese, it receives little benefit from the language services (20).
Tonkin offers four provocative alternatives to the UN's present language regime, all of which he claims to be fairer, more cost-efficient, and less bound up in power politics. One of the alternatives, the use of Esperanto, is later explored in greater depth by Claude Piron ("Une solution à étudier: l'espéranto"). The others (greater use of English as a working language to bridge a larger number of official languages, greater reliance on language learning, and application of a "user-pay" principle) are unfortunately not further considered.
Well-reasoned and innovative proposals for the solution of specific problems are in fact few and far between in this volume. August Cluver ("A Futurist Outlook on the Languages of Southern Africa") argues for the establishment of a regional terminology bureau which would enable many languages of the region to be used in primary education and health care. François Boileau ("Les normes linguistiques internationales et nationales et les communautés francophones et acadiennes du Canada") draws attention to the vital role of the Canadian Court Challenges Program in giving teeth to the minority-rights clauses contained in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Phillipson recommends that all donor agencies involved in development work should be required to elaborate and follow a language policy that would conform to a still-to-be-developed universal declaration of linguistic rights. Most speakers, however, confine themselves to commentary on the present situation, to issues of micro-reform, or to rhetorical calls for the world to become a nicer place.
DOWN AND DIRTY: LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN PRACTICE. The greatest strength of the volume is in several detailed and meticulous case studies in various areas of language law. Particularly worthy of mention are Teresa Scassa, "Language Policy in the United States"; Richard Tardif, "La coexistence de deux langues officielles dans le fédéralisme canadien"; Antoni Milian-Massana, "Le régime linguistique de l'Union Européenne"; Didier Rouget, "La protection des droits linguistiques dans le cadre du Conseil de l'Europe"; and Jean-Charles Ducharme, "Article 23 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés: État de la mise en oeuvre des droits à l'instruction dans la langue de la minorité au Canada". All five of these articles, as well as several others, confirm the complex and contested nature of linguistic rights, and the difficulty of interpreting and applying general legal frameworks to specific situations.
One plausible conclusion that might be drawn from this impressive collection is that legislation and policies in themselves provide no solution to language problems, although they help to determine the conditions within which solutions must be found. Several contributions hint at the intricate linkages between linguistic tensions (or multilingual harmony) and other social factors, in particular Joseph Magnet ("Economic and Linguistic Competition in Canada's Federal System"), Lachman Khubchandani ("India: A Case of Organic Pluralism"), and Battiste's paper on the Míkmaq. Until we understand more about the way language is implicated in both societal power relations and the constitution of the self, we are unlikely to fully comprehend the limits of language legislation and language policy, or be able to develop forms of intervention that leave primary linguistic ecosystems more or less intact. Seen in this light, the UN's slow, and on some accounts timid, approach to dealing with language rights is not as negative as it seems. Better that the limits be established cautiously and gradually pushed back, rather than have the debate founder over contentious and possibly unworkable guarantees.
A. LANGUAGE CHOICE. What effect is the widespread use of English through the Internet likely to have on the situation of the English language and other languages across the world? What are the prospects for languages other than English as Internet languages?
B. PRAGMATICS & COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES. What are the rules of linguistic behavior, of genre, of address, that govern communication on the Internet, and how are they evolving?
C. LANGUAGE LEARNING. How can the Internet be used for teaching and learning foreign languages?
More information and an on-line registration form may be had from Dr. Timothy Reagan, Department of Curriculum & Instruction, School of Education, University of Connecticut, 249 Glenbrook Road, Storrs, CT 06269-2033 USA (treagan@knownet.cpbi.org, fax: 860-486-0210).
At Hartford, the core faculty will consist of Joseph Conroy, popular teacher and author of language textbooks; Dorothy Holland, long-time teacher of Esperanto and former president of the American Association of Teachers of Esperanto; and Spomenka Stimec, internationally-known novelist and Esperanto specialist from Zagreb, Croatia. This year the advanced course will give particular attention to the teaching of Esperanto for the benefit of teachers wishing to use the language in their professional work. (Tuition: $295 for one credit, $225 on a non-credit basis. Housing on-campus: $100 for the week. Further information: 800-234-4412.
At San Francisco State, the core faculty will include Grant Goodall, professor of linguistics at the University of Texas and veteran teacher in the SFSU workshops; Derek Roff, staff member, Computer and Information Resources and Technology, University of New Mexico, with extensive experience in teaching Esperanto in a wide range of environments; and Trevor Steele, an Esperanto novelist and certified Esperanto teacher with a degree from University of Queensland, Australia. Dorothy Stermer, of the Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico, is an experienced Esperanto teacher and will devote her attention to out-of-class sessions. At SFSU the most advanced level will cover a range of topics relating to the linguistics of Esperanto on the one hand and its culture and literature on the other. (Tuition: $420 for three credits. Language-house style on-campus housing is available. Further information: 415-342-1796. Web page here.)
2. Language Learning & Technology (LLT), a new academic refereed journal, will be published on the World Wide Web beginning summer 1997. The journal is sponsored by six professional organizations and language resource centers in the United States and Europe, and is supported by an editorial board of 30 scholars in the fields of second language acquisition, applied linguistics, and computer-assisted language learning. More details, including a listing of the sponsoring organizations and editorial board, information for contributors, and free subscription information, is available at: http://polyglot.cal.msu.edu/llt.
Esperanto Studies and Interlinguistics.
Esperantic Studies Foundation.