"It's not unusual for environmentalism, feminism, and language rights to be hated by those who aspire to build authoritarian states."
Catalan PEN promotes the update of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights because "linguistic rights are human rights."
Barcelona"Everyone has the right to their language in their country. It's a matter of human dignity. And we all have the right to linguistic security; that is, to live in our language. If this doesn't happen, we are facing situations of cultural and linguistic domination, and therefore also personal domination," says Vicenta Tasa Fuster (Oliva, 1974) of Dr.
Combating linguicide and the abuses that affect the language and identity of peoples was the premise that led Barcelona to a historic milestone in 1996: the signing of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights (UDLR), a document that was officially declared. It was a text promoted by PEN International and the Escarré International Centre for Ethnic and National Minorities (CIEMEN) that deployed 50 principles in defense of linguistic diversity and for the protection of linguistic minorities. Although it soon became clear that the United Nations would not adopt it as a legally binding roadmap, its principles have transformed dozens of international entities. It also served to motivate states in Latin America, Africa, and Asia to take on the defense of their linguistic minorities, and the UN eventually incorporated the idea that linguistic rights are human rights.
Almost thirty years later, the Linguistic Rights Committee of PEN Català once again raises the need to combat—and with more urgency than ever—the impact on linguistic diversity of globalization, migration, technologies, and uniformizing policies. The book The right to language (Saldonar), written by fifteen specialists and PEN members such as Carles Torner, Isidor Marí, Oriol Ramon, and Jordi Martí Monllau, reopens the debate and brings it up to date.
5,000 languages, 200 states
"Technological and financial capitalism is an accelerating factor in the disappearance of all types of diversity in the world, including languages. However, I am convinced that if capitalism were to disappear tomorrow, languages would continue to disappear and become minoritized. These are phenomena related to the forms of domination of some groups over others, Indo-European, Basque," says Vicenta Tasa, who coordinated the book.
The ambition is for the DUDL to influence the language policy of states, which have linguistic sovereignty. "There are some 5,000 languages and some 200 states, which recognize the official and social use of languages in different ways. The possibilities of living in Catalan or Valencian will vary depending on where you are and the activity you want to pursue," notes the language security expert, referring to the four states where Catalan is spoken. "States like Switzerland, Canada, Belgium, and Finland have models that are reasonably egalitarian and respect their linguistic diversity," he notes.
Technology and immigration: the challenges
One of the aspects that has changed the most compared to thirty years ago is new technologies, which seemed like emancipatory tools outside of states but have turned out to be quite the opposite: factors of minority status. "All technological revolutions have always strengthened the dominant languages of the moment. Investment and production of emerging technologies is concentrated in the United States and China, and are accompanied by two languages: English and Chinese," says Tasa, who in the book analyzes precisely how to guarantee linguistic rights in the digital environment. "Of all the minority and stateless languages, Catalan is the one with the best position in the digital world, yet it is precarious. Languages like Finnish, Danish, Irish Gaelic, and Icelandic have a very weak position," he adds.
The other aspect emphasized, with an article by linguist Pere Comella, is the linguistic rights of the immigrant population—and the right to their language of origin—and how these are made compatible with social and linguistic integration and with the native languages of a territory—especially if it has a minority language. Both aspects call for intelligent and well-targeted public policies.
Feminism, environmentalism, language
"I've always been struck by the limited attention paid to linguistic diversity by sectors of the feminist and environmental movements," Tasa laments. For the professor, the loss of natural diversity is closely related to the loss of cultural, linguistic, and lifestyle diversity. Only when they exist together do they make it possible to "live in a place with a cohesive community" and "with security." "It's no surprise that environmentalism, feminism, and linguistic rights are especially persecuted and hated by those who aspire to build authoritarian states, in Europe and the Western world," the professor states. "There's nothing more dangerous than wanting to build homogeneous, pure, and exclusive societies."
