THE UNEASY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE ISSUES AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION: LINGUISTICALLY SENSITIVE

APPROACHES TO PARTICIPATION

Prof. Robert DunbarSabhal Mòr Ostaig/UHIMI

The nature of the issues involved

• Forms of economic (and social) integration for many autochthonous communities have had a negative impact on the viability of those communities, both generally and in terms of language vitality

• Linguistic ‘heartlands’ often based in rural hinterlands

• Economic integration has promoted heavy reliance on a small number of industries; lack of diversity has led to succeeding economic crises

The nature of the issues involved (cont’d)

• Linguistic policies have promoted use of dominant language; linguistic and educational policies have tended to ease and even promote depopulation and a ‘brain drain’ (partly due to a general lack of barriers to individual integration (unlike many ‘new’ minorities))

• Language shift in the heartlands themselves also facilitated by ‘import’ of the majority language, creation and reinforcement of linguistic hierarchies, and resultant unstable diglossic patterns.

State responses?

• Regional economic development policies adopted from 1950s/1960s

• Administrative boundaries of development agencies tend not to correspond with borders of the linguistic ‘heartlands’

• Inadequate consideration of sociolinguistic implications of economic development strategies: attraction of non-speakers to ‘heartlands’; return of speakers with non-speaking families; non-speakers predominate in managerial positions; projects sometimes require dominant language skills

Relevant international instruments

• Most of the major international instruments related to minority protection, including the Framework Convention and the Languages Charter, make reference to the concept of cultural diversity and cultural security

Particular treaty provisions?

• Article 27, ICCPR: Ominayak, Länsmann 1 and 2, Mahuika• Rights to participation:• UNGA Minorities Declaration, Art. 2(3): ‘Persons belonging to

minorities have the right to participate effectively in decisions on the national and, where appropriate, regional level concerning the minority to which they belong or the regions in which they live . . . .’

• Framework Convention, Art. 15: ‘The Parties shall create the conditions necessary for the effective participation of persons belonging to national minorities in cultural, social and economic life and in public affairs, in particular those affecting them.’

Particular treaty provisions? (cont’d)

• ‘additive economic integration’?:• UN Minorities Declaration, Art. 5(1): ‘National policies

and programmes shall be implemented with due regard for the legitimate interests of persons belonging to minorities.’

• Framework Convention, Art 5(1): ‘The Parties undertake to promote the conditions necessary for persons belonging to national minorities to maintain and develop their culture, and to preserve the essential elements of their identity, namely their religion, language, traditions and cultural heritage.’

Finally, the Languages Charter

• Article 7 1 b: an obligation of states to respect ‘the geographical area of each regional or minority language in order to ensure that existing or new administrative divisions do not constitute an obstacle to the promotion of the regional or minority langauge’.

• Article 7 1 c: an obligation of states to recognise ‘the need for resolute action to promote regional or minority languages in order to safeguard them’

Languages Charter, Art. 13, ‘Economic and Social Life’

• Subpara. 2 b: ‘with regard to economic and social activities, the Parties undertake, in so far as the public authorities are competent, within the territory in which the regional or minority langauges are used, and as far as reasonably possible, in the economic and social sectors directly under their control (the public sector), to organise activities to promote the use of regional or minority languages’.

• Subpara 1 c: States must, ‘within the whole country’, undertake ‘to oppose practices designed to discourage the use of regional or minority languages in connection with economic activities’.

• Subpara. 1 d: States Parties must ‘within the whole country’, undertake ‘to facilitate and/or encourage the use of regional or minority languages by means other than those [rather particular and limited means] specified in . . . [other] subparagraphs [in paragraph 1]’.

• Conclusions