Media Development Vol. XLVI 4/1999 Published four times a year by the World 33 What fate awaits the world’s languages? Association for Christian Communication Tove Skutnabb-Kangas 357 Kennington Lane London SE11 5QY England Telephone +44 (0)20 7582 9139 Fax +44 (0)20 7735 0340 38 First public hearing on languages and E-mail: [email protected] human rights http://www.wacc.org.uk Editors Pradip N. Thomas 14 Language and the right to communicate Philip Lee Cees J. Hamelink Editorial consultants Clifford G. Christians, Professor, University of 18 Rehabilitating language Illinois, Urbana, USA. Philip Lee Marlene Cuthbert, Professor Emeritus, University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada Regina Festa, Director, Workers’ Television, São Paulo, Brazil. 22 Selective protection: Guarding language in South Africa Cees J. Hamelink, Professor, University of Amsterdam, David Wanless Amsterdam, Netherlands. Karol Jakubowicz, Lecturer, Institute of Journalism, Warsaw, Poland. Kong Zhiqiang, Professor, Fudan University, 25 F rom our mothers’ arm s Shanghai, China. Linda Slough Fernando Reyes Matta, Director, Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Transnacionales, Santiago, Chile. Michèle Mattelart, Professor, University of Paris, France. 28 Tok Pisin and Tok Ples as languages of identification in Emile G. McAnany, Professor, University of Texas, Papua New Guinea Austin, USA. Philip Cass Breda Pavli˘c, Unesco, Paris. Usha V. Reddi, Professor, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. Robert A. White, Director, Centro 34 In the event . Interdisciplinare sulla Comunicazione Sociale, Gregorian University, Rome, Italy. 37 On the screen . Subscriptions Individual subscribers world-wide £20 or US$ 30. Libraries and institutions in North America and Europe £40 or US$ 60. 39 Web wars and interfaith futures in India Libraries and institutions elsewhere in the world Pradip N. Thomas £27 or US$ 40. WACC personal and corporate members receive 47 War in Bosnia – moving images Media Development as part of membership Dina Iordanova privileges. The contents of Media Development may be reproduced only with permission. Opinions expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the editors nor of the WACC. Cover design John Bury Printed by Battley Brothers Ltd 37 Old Town, Clapham London SW4 0JN In the next issue Communication and the globalisation of poverty’ will be the theme of the first ISSN 0143-5558 issue of Media Development in the 21st century. It will focus on poverty as an all-pervasive factor in global politics – one which needs urgent attention. denied their prior humanity or, worse, corporate endeavour. denied them the right to their own The Argentinian novelist Ernesto Editorial language. To many people, whose Sabato refuted this individualism lands were expropriated, children when the millennium of the Spanish forcibly taken away and environments language, supposedly founded by a destroyed, the death of their language Spanish monk from the monastry of was the final insult – it severed San Millan, was celebrated in 1978. historical memories and destroyed His words capture the dynamism their humanity. inherent in all languages, its corporate One of the most poignant moments at Unfortunately, linguicide is not only basis, its changeable qualities and the the WACC/PCC ‘Public Hearing on a historical fact but it is also a contem- fact that dominant languages too are Languages and Human Rights’, held at porary reality. Hundreds of languages liable to become a historical footnote. The Hague, 1-3 May 1999, was a continue to be made redundant by fiat ‘Since Spanish is a living language, testimony from a young Kurdish and decree, by destructive modernisa- not an invented one, we must refuse participant. He did not know his own tion and monocultural globalisation, the good monk the honour of having language and as a result he had never by short-sighted educational policies, invented it. All he did was to put into been able to communicate with his by assimilative cultural politics and writing some words of a dialect that grandmother in their native tongue. Darwinian designs. Unesco, along had developed over the centuries in This seemingly innocuous statement with other organisations committed to the clumsy and poorly articulated utter- was an extraordinary testimony to the linguistic rights, has documented the ances of illiterate peasants, who had emotional, cultural, and human costs steady disappearance of languages no need to read Cicero in order to of linguicide – the death of language. in many parts of the world. Oral raise their pigs, shout for food, scold It brought into sharp focus the persecu- traditions have been the worst hit, but their wives or berate their children. It tion of languages, in this case Kurdish, ‘literate’ traditions too are in decline. is impossible to know how long it took by the Turkish state and its courts, and And many others, such as sign to “corrupt Latin”, as one purist has the language predicament of a languages that are vitally important to put it – but then Latin had already migrant, who has been forced to significant minorities like the deaf, are been corrupted by the Roman soldiers, reckon with the power dynamics of not recognised and treated as official and would continue to be so through a host language in an environment languages on a par with spoken the development of other tongues. The characterised by the general devalua- language or given adequate logistical same point could be made about the tion of all ‘minority’ languages. In that or financial support essential for their languages of other nations once sense he was doubly oppressed – by a development. invaded by so-called “barbarians” state that denied him his mother Dominant language strains at times and now celebrated for their culture.’* tongue and by an adopted state that tied to religion and nationality con- If there is a valid argument against continued the process of shaping him tinue to make inroads into an already neo-liberalism, it is that we cannot into an émigré without a real home. fragile language environment. Islami- place a price tag on all those The issue of language rights is sation in North Africa has led to the aspects that are basic to the survival of pecial and unique because language ascendance of Arabic and to the mar- humanity. The commoditisation of the is fundamental to human identity and ginalisation of indigenous language environment and ways of life has led integral to what it means to be human. groups such as that belonging to the to the investiture of value on all that Human beings are creators of culture Amazigh (Berbers). The influence of can be bought and sold on the market because of language. Language helps Hindi has cut into large swathes of and to the divestiture of value on life’s us to name our world and in that indigenous, tribal India, and English, intangibles such as the need for process we become a part of the by virtue of being the basis for inter- language rights and language world. As Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and national popular culture, science diversity. If there is a valid basis for the others have noted, there are enduring and technology continues to make its right to communicate and communica- links between linguistic diversity hegemonic presence felt. tion, it is surely the recognition that and bio-diversity. In addition, it is Many believe that the death of that right can only be fulfilled in the language that allows us to apprehend language is an entirely natural phe- specificity and locality of languages worlds that are beyond the frame of nomenon, that only those languages and not in their absence. I common experience. Remove the right that are sufficiently conversant with the to language and all that is left is a project of neo-liberalism are destined * Sabato, E., ‘Latin America: A mere husk, a shadow, a self without to survive into the next millennium. Different Way’ (pp.52-55), The real substance. Others individualise and essentialise Unesco Courier, July/Aug., 1992. The colonial enterprise – the Span- language to such an extent that they ish in Latin America and the English are in danger of losing sight of the fact settlers in Australia, for example – did that the origins of language are not as exactly that. They created puppets out important as the fact that language is of those who were once a people by for ever inventing itself in the here educating them in a language that and now and that this is always a 2 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 ow many languages are there in the world? languages each (the Philippines, Russia, USA, Malaysia, Most linguists say around 6-7,000. The China, Sudan, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Chad, Vanuatu, The H Central African Republic, Myanmar/Burma and Nepal), most useful source is still The Ethnologue, edited we see that 22 megadiversity countries have around 75% by Barbara Grimes from the Summer Institute of the world’s languages. More than 80% of the world’s of Linguistics, a missionary organisation – languages are endemic: they exist in one country only. see <http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/>. The How many users/(native) speakers do the various Ethnologue lists almost 6,800 languages in 228 languages have? The 11 largest languages in the world (‘the big killer languages’) account for approximately half countries. But there might be twice as many: the world’s population (Chinese, English, Hindi/Urdu, 12-14,000 languages. How come? There are Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, Bengali, Japanese, deaf people in all societies, and where hearing German, French). Most of the world’s languages are people have developed spoken, oral spoken by relatively few people: the median number of languages, the deaf have developed sign speakers is probably around 5-6,000. 95% of the world’s languages, fully-fledged, complex, abstract spoken languages have fewer than 1 million native users; half of all the languages have fewer than 10,000.