by Dónall Ó Riagáin

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

The theme of this paper is linguistic diversity and language.  But what is language?   My dictionary defines language as ‘The aspect of human behaviour that involves the use of vocal sounds in meaningful patterns and, when they exist, corresponding written symbols to form, express, and communicate thoughts and feelings’.  We all thinks of language as a means of communication and we are right in doing so.

 Language is a tool for communication.   But it is a lot more than that.  It is a repository for the collective thoughts and memories of a community.  It is the finely honed tool of a people for expressing their most subtle thoughts, their most tender feelings and most brilliant ideas.   It is the receptacle in which their literature (be it oral or written), their history, their folk memories, their fears, their dreams and hopes are recorded, stored and made available, not only for the living, but for coming generations.   A language gives men and women a sense of peoplehood, of continuity and of a common identity.  Each language is a unique window on the world.   Our languages have enormous symbolic importance for us.  They are undoubtedly the greatest manifestation of our human genius. Language is important for all of us.   Small wonder then that when a people’s language is suppressed, marginalized or despised that resentment, alienation and even conflictual behaviour express themselves.   If we look at violent conflicts in Europe over the past half-century we find that lingusitic and cultural issues were key elements in most of them – the Südtirol in the 1950s and more recently Northern Ireland, Corsica, Macedonia, Kosova, Chechnya and the Basque Country, for instance.   It follows that conflict resolution, building peace and fostering good relations between peoples entails promoting respect for linguistic and cultural diversity.  It means finding structures that not only accommodate diversity but regard it as a resource for development and personal enrichment. I have the honour of being the representative of the Linguapax Institute at this conference.  Linguapax was born as a UNESCO project and is now based in the UNESCO Centre of Catalonia.   Note the two key elements of the name – lingua (i.e. language) and pax (i.e. peace).   Linguapax aims to:

• Promote information and research about language policies.
• Assist the language policy makers of state or regional governments.

• Foster multilingual education and the improvement of learning methods.

• Connect multilingual education with the culture of peace .

• Offer technical assistance to minority or minorised communities.

• Defend linguistic rights as human and collective rights.

• Facilitate the management of language diversity in cities with different community languages.

• Contribute to the presence of multilingualism in cyberspace.

• Create new mechanisms of collaboration between specialized NGOs.

A daunting set of tasks but one we feel is of great importance to humankind and the building of a peaceful and respectful society.Let me put a few facts before you! 

• There are about 6 billion inhabitants of our planet.
• There are about 6,000 languages spoken today around the world.
• Between 1960 and 2000 the world population doubled and continues to grow at more or less the same rate[1].

 So we can see immediately that more and more people, who speak different languages, are now more likely than ever before to come in contact with each other and indeed live on the same territories and even in the same towns and cities.  And with this development comes the need to regulate and provide for the use of different languages.Much has been written and said over the past decade about ‘language death’.   Some experts warn us that half of the earth’s present 6,000 living languages could die during the 21^st century.   Some put the figure as high as 90%.  Alerting us to this danger is a good and necessary thing.  [It resembles the debate initiated some thirty years ago on the threat to our physical environment.  Some many governments still chose to disregard the dangers of global warming and climate change but at least there is now a growing awareness of these issues and a corresponding call to address the problem].  Let us hope that a heightened awareness of the threat of langauge death will lead to determined action to conserve our langauages.There is, however, a downside to this debate.  One can detect some evidence of a paralysing fear and fatalism on the part of some proponents of lesser used languages.  They fear that their efforts are in vain, that their languages must surely be among the 90% doomed to extinction and that there is little point in fighting for what may be a lost cause.   This kind of thinking is as dangerous as it is erroneous.   Even those scholars who warn us of language death do not believe that any language must die.  They point to steps that can be taken to reverse langauge shift and put languages on a more secure footing.  What happens is our responsibility.  If our languages die it is because we will have lost the will to retain and develop them.As a speaker of a langauge that came back from the edge of the grave and only this year was made an official and working langauge of the European Union, I hope that my message is not one of impending death but rather one of hope.   International communication is dominated by a small number of major languages – English, Chinese, Spanish and, to a lesser extent, French and Russian.   It is futile to try to have some of our minority or lesser used languages replace them.  What we need to do is to ensure the sustainibility of our languages by ensuring that they can and will be used in certain domains.  Let me start by putting a few facts before you! 

• There are about 6 billion inhabitants of our planet.
• There are about 6,000 languages spoken today around the world.
• Between 1960 and 2000 the world population doubled and continues to grow at more or less the same rate[2].

 So we can see immediately that more and more people, who speak different languages, are now more likely than ever before to come in contact with each other and indeed live on the same territories and even in the same towns and cities.  And with this development comes the need to regulate and provide for the use of different languages. 

At the 2004 Linguapax Forum in Barcelona, Prof. Albert Bastardas i Boada gave a very thought-provoking paper entitled  “Towards a ‘Linguistic sustainability’: Concepts, principles and problems of human communicative organisation for the twenty-first century”.   He argued for a new global paradigm for linguistic conservation, sustainability and, what he called, ecolingusitics.  

“Applying another version of subsidiarity, in a linguistic sense, we could say, as I have so often done, that ‘everything that a local language can do need not be done by a more global language’, that is, by default, the language of pre-eminent use should be that of the group, the weaker, except for those cases of external communications when the situation so requires. “

  But in practical terms what can you, the defenders of Siberia’s languages, do?  Let me briefly and succinctly make a few proposals.   I ask you to consider and bear in mind two words – ‘combine’ and ‘cooperate’.   You must ensure that your languages can be used freely and without any undue difficulty in certain key domains of everyday life.  You must ensure that your children are taught your language at school and, where possible, taught through the medium of that language.  You must insist on a full range of radio and television services in your langauge.We know that there are up to 170 languages spoken in the Russian Federation.   I am convinced of the importance for those working for these languages to establish an NGO or some kind of network to share information and expertise and to make joint representations to the federal government.   Something as basic as a good website, directed by a representative steering group, could accomplish much.  With good planning and determination it should be possible at some point in the near future to establish a centre for linguistic diversity.  Six years ago I attended an international seminar in Elista, the capital of the Republic of Kalmykia on ‘Minority Languages in Russia:  Perspectives for Development’.  At the end of the seminar, which was under the auspices of UNESCO, an organisation was established on an ad hoc basis by the participants to promote cooperation among Russia’s lingusitic minorities.  It was called RUMIDAP (Russian Minorities’ Initiative for Development and Peace).   Unfortunately, the anticipated support from UNESCO did not materialise as that organisation was entering a period of accute financial problems.   The result was that RUMIDAP remained still-born – alive and present but not really able to function.  But the idea remains good and it is one that should be pursued under the original name or under a new one.In addressing the federal government, I see this network or organisation interacting, not in a belligerent manner, but rather in a constructive and cooperative one.  It would surely ease the task of the federal authorities if they could deal with an organisation that was representative of the various linguistic minorities and could authoritatively speak on their behalf.A number of new and valuable tools have come to hand in recent years.  I am thinking, in particular of the Council of Europe conventions, relating to linguistic matters, that Russia has signed.   One of these is the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.   Russia has not only signed this but has also ratified it.  Article 10 of the Framework Convention clearly sets out certain linguistic rights:  

1         The Parties undertake to recognise that every person belonging to a national minority has the right to use freely and without interference his or her minority language, in private and in public, orally and in writing. 

2         In areas inhabited by persons belonging to national minorities traditionally or in substantial numbers, if those persons so request and where such a request corresponds to a real need, the Parties shall endeavour to ensure, as far as possible, the conditions which would make it possible to use the minority language in relations between those persons and the administrative authorities.  

3         The Parties undertake to guarantee the right of every person belonging to a national minority to be informed promptly, in a language which he or she understands, of the reasons for his or her arrest, and of the nature and cause of any accusation against him or her, and to defend himself or herself in this language, if necessary with the free assistance of an interpreter. 

The Russian Federation signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2001 and indicated that it should be in a position to ratify it within five of six years.   Unlike the Framework Convention, which is rights based, the Charter is programmatic.    It sets out certain undertakings that ratifying states must accept and the time of ratification.   It also has a stronger and more effective monitoring system than the Framework Convention.   It will almost certainly not be possible for Russia to apply the strongest part of the Charter – (Part III – Measures to promote the use of regional or minority languages) – to all of the languages spoken in Russia.  But it should be possible to apply it to many of them, including some of the Siberian languages.  This would mean that the federal government would be bound by an international convention to ensure certain measures to guarantee a future for these languages.  It is necessary and indeed urgent to interact with the federal government to ensure that this happens.   A united voice with coherent and reasonable demands cannot and should not be ignored.Prof. Bill Bowring is the Council of Europe expert here and I do not wish to cut across what he has to say.  But as someone who was active in drafting the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and who participated in a number of Council of Europe missions, I feel confident in saying that similar help and advice, particularly relating to the Charter, would be available from the Council.And what can we in Linguapax do?  We can place our considerable worldwide expertise at your disposal, free of charge.  We invite you to use our website – www.linguapax.org    We invite you to offer material for the website.  If you need specialised advice or information, contact us.  If we can help you, we will.  Our door is open.  Allow me to mention two other projects – Adum and Voces Diversae.  The ADUM project (which in Friulano means "together") aims to offer people and organisations throughout Europe, that work for the regional and minority languages, information on the European programmes that can be taken advantage of to (co)fund projects to promote these languages. Likewise, ADUM will offer a virtual space to aid the drafting of European proposals by bodies and people working for over 60 linguistic communities in Europe. The ADUM website - www.adum.info - will be available in French, English and German, and will provide access to a database of potential European partners and consultants, and a useful list of research documents available on the Internet. Visitors to the site will be invited to join the list of potential partners and consultants, and will also find detailed advice in the form of:

• a manual on how to design a project proposal;

• information on the potential usefulness of numerous EU programmes and actions;

• a set of case studies, so that they get to know what kinds of problems they may come across, and the solutions that others have found, when designing proposals for European projects; and

• an interactive forum which will offer visitors the chance to work together to this end.

But Russia is not a member of the European Union you may say.  Yes, that is true.  But Russian organisations may still apply for funding from the Tacis Programme.  Why not develop a project on language?Voces Diversae, which means ‘different voices’, will offer a virtual space where teachers of lesser used languages (and those who use them as mediums of instruction) can share ideas and information.  The web-site, which will formally be up and running in autumn 2005 will offer sections for academic papers, chat rooms, a notice board for upcoming events and new publications and hopefully an electronic newsletter.  You are cordially invited to use it - http://server2.vocesdiversae.org.uk  Prof. Borgoyakova accepted an invitation last year to come to Ireland to the Voces Diversae conference, a conference which I organised and coordinated.  She made an excellent presentation on the position of the Khakass language in education and also made some new friends and established new contacts.  This shows that distance need not be a block to cooperation and solidarity.  We have already observed that there are some 6 billion people on our planet today and an estimated 6,000 languages spoken by them.  Much has been said and written about language death in the 21^st century.  Some people say that up to 90% of the world’s languages could become extinct within a hundred years.  Maybe they could but they need not – not as long as you and I say, ‘No, we wish to retain and develop our languages.  They must be allowed to live and flourish’.   Our languages and their attendant cultures are old and rich.  We have something to offer the modern world.  We are the keepers of our grandchildren’s heritage.   Apart, we are in danger of extinction.  Together, we can succeed and make our contribution to building a world where diversity and peace may flourish. 

We need each other and together we can achieve things that alone we could only dream of.

       If we look more closely at how bilingualised people and groups come to abandon their first languages, we discover a whole series of dynamic characteristics in which often the protagonists of the very phenomenon may not be very aware of the historical process in which they are participating. For many, consciousness of the problem comes when it may already be too late, as has been seen in many cases we know of. What happens, however, is that a series of behaviours is set in motion with important historical consequences  which too often are little understood by their very agents. The key point of breaking the balance may be in the moment when an important number of individuals of the same group accept the use of the language that was initially allochthonous to use among themselves in a habitual manner. While there is a functional distribution that makes the outside language basically used to speak with individuals of other groups or to carry out determined public functions, there may be a more or less unstable balance, but the continuity of the linguistic collective appears assured, even though it is in a context that is perhaps little favourable. If, however, they begin to use it among themselves, and above all this takes place in a general way, even in the plane of individualised communications—those of private and domestic types—then the system can begin a crisis dynamic. If among the members of the group or sub-group, for example, the young people speak in a different code in important numbers, this will mean that pairs will begin to be formed in that code who will eventually have children, to whom they will also probably tend to speak in that code. We would then have the first members of the group that have the allochthonous language as an L1 that is not the original one of the group. If the behaviour is widely imitated and extended progressively, the group will progressively be emptied of people who have the original code as an L1 and its use will continually decrease.