Transcript Education and maintenance of linguistic diversities

"Linguistic human rights and linguistic democracy
in the Nordic countries (and the rest of the world) fleeting entities?”
Dr. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas
University of Roskilde, Denmark
Åbo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland
http://www.ruc.dk/~tovesk/;
[email protected]
Guidelines for USA foreign policy from 1948 Bret-ton Woods, to
World Bank & IMF to WTO. George Kennan, main USA BW
negotiator in 1948
’We have 50% of the world’s wealth, but only
6,3% of its population. In this situation, our
real job in the coming period is to devise a
pattern of relationships which permit us to
maintain this position of disparity. To do so,
we have to dispense with all sentimentality ...
we should cease thinking about human rights,
the raising of living standards, and
democratisation’
Link 1944 – 2002:
USA unilateral domination

Bretton Woods 1944, UN
Monetary and Financial
Conference. Goal: to make
everybody embrace the
Unites States' 'elementary
economic axiom ... that
prosperity has no fixed
limits', as expressed by the
president of the conference,
the U.S. Secretary of the
Treasury, Henry
Morgenthau, in his opening
speech

Hervé Kempf (2002): the fact
that the USA ‘has stepped up its
military spending while
rejecting multilateral
agreements is no mere
coincidence. There is a
structural link between the two.
This is because, in the US
administration's view, the
American way of life, which is
based on a very high level of
consumption, is not something
that should be called into
question.’
Global domination of USA corporate, national interests is
legitimate… they are universal!!

The U.S. Council for
 Condoleezza Rice,
Foreign Relations, 1944: ‘a
President G.W. Bush’s
global economy, dominated
foreign affairs advisor, in
by U.S. corporate interests’
Campaign 2000. Promoting
the national interest:
 … the USA ‘would need to
dominate economically and
militarily’ because ‘the U.S.  ’The rest of the world is
national interest required
best served by the USA
free access to the markets
pursuing its own interests
and raw materials of this
because American values
area’ (Korten 1996: 21).
are universal’
USA savings: 19 billion/year 1
Most European countries teach a lot of foreign
languages in schools; Britain and the USA do not.
The savings (as compared to Europe) because of the
very limited foreign language teaching in the USA,
with some 38 million pupils in elementary and
secondary schools, are minimally around
19 billion dollars per year
(Grin & Sfreddo 1997, Grin 2003).
They benefit, we pay.
USA savings: 19 billion/year 2
These savings are made possible because "people in
the rest of the world are willing to devote time,
money and effort in learning […] English“ (Grin
2003).
And obviously the USA can then invest this saved
money (and time) into some other human-capitalenhancing activity that gives their students an
edge.
Pierre Bourdieu: globalisation is
ideological universalisation of particular models
France, glorifying the French society as ‘the presumed
incarnation of the Rights of Man’ saw ‘the inheritance of the
French Revolution … as the model for all possible
revolutions’. Building on this example, Bourdieu (2001: 9697) describes today's globalisation as ‘a pseudo-concept that
is both descriptive and prescriptive, which has replaced
“modernisation”, that was long used in the social sciences in
the USA as a euphemistic way of imposing a naively
ethnocentric evolutionary model by means of which
different societies were classified according to their distance
from the economically most advanced society, i.e. American
society. […]
Bourdieu: globalisation: the USA universalising its own
particularity covertly as a universal model
The word [globalisation] (and the
model it expresses) incarnates the
most accomplished form of the
imperialism of the universal, which
consists of one society [i.e. the USA]
universalising its own particularity
covertly as a universal model.’
Bourdieu (2001, 96-97), translation Robert Phillipson
Lykketoft, Kurdistan, Denmark and DANIDA
In his opening speech at the conference The Kurds: One
People - Four States - What Kind of Future? 26 May
2004 at the Danish Parliament, the former Foreign
Minister Mogens Lykketoft, defended cultural
communities as "fundamental part[s] of our lives as
humans" and our duty to "protect the right to enjoy each
our own culture, each history and each our language"
(Lykketoft 2004: 5). Who could disagree?
He also claimed that "it is an infringement of the human
rights when Kurds are denied the use of their mother
tongue […] No matter whether it happens in Turkey, in
Iraq, in Iran - or in Syria" (ibid.) and added, after listing
some of the other crimes against Kurds, that "there is no
excuse for these crimes. Only condemnation" (ibid.).
But when it happens Denmark…?
But when it happens Denmark… 1

Interestingly, Lykketoft did not mention or
condemn the fact that Kurdish children are denied
the right to use their mother tongue in Danish day
care centers and schools. He did not tell the
participants that it was his party, the Social
Democrats, which, while in power, suggested that
the teaching of immigrant and refugee minorities
mother tongues should be abolished from schools
and the children should have more Danish instead.
But when it happens Denmark… 2
It was one of Lykketoft’s party fellows (Svend Erik
Hermansen, Social Democrat Party, chair of the Board of
Education and Culture in Høje Tåstrup) who uttered the
following memorable words:
 'It is self-evident that refugees who are only going to be
in Denmark during a short period should maintain their
mother tongue. But when one is born and has grown up
in Denmark and will have one's whole existence here,
then the mother tongue is Danish - full stop.' (Said to
Berlingske Tidende, reported in Information 11
December 1995, p. 7; emphasis added).

Denmark supports ”ethnic communities” –
but not in Denmark…

It is also interesting that DANIDA, the Danish
development cooperation agency, supports the
right of "ethnic communities" to organize on the
basis of ethnicity, as something positive, in
countries like Bolivia or Ecuador…
 … while the same type of organization in
Denmark (e.g. by Turks or Pakistanis) is called
segregation and ghettoization.
Denmark supports bilingual education in
Latin America – but not in Denmark…

DANIDA also supports bilingual education in several
Latin American countries, because it is a human right for
children to develop the mother tongue and understand the
language of instruction but also because it leads to better
results in Spanish…
 … while bilingual education for immigrant minorities
does not exist in Denmark, not even in its most
elementary early-exit transitional form. Children have no
right to develop the mother tongue or understand the
language of instruction, and better competence in Danish
is attempted through methods which have never worked
anywhere and are against all solid scientific evidence.
Denmark: linguistic diversity is good - in other
countries - but in Denmark ”the hegemonic
status of the national language” prevails …
“Multilingual policies seem to contain […]
contradictions, often trying to shore up national
languages (especially against the threat of
English) in the name of linguistic diversity but
dampening linguistic diversity at the local level
through the hegemonic status of the national
language”
(Peter Ives 2004a: 42).
Claim 1

We in the Nordic countries often construct
glorifying images of ourselves as havens for
democracy and human rights, as compared to the
rest of the world. Our development cooperation
and some of our roles in international politics as
conflict mediators and even preventers strengthen
the image of us as those who have more or less
arrived - we are at the most developed end of
several continua.
Question 1
How does this tally with our historical
and present-day realities in terms of
linguistic human rights and
linguistic democracy?
Imperialist assimilatory language policies
We have a pedigree of imperialist assimilatory
language policies towards

the Saami, in Finland, Norway, Sweden
 the Inuits in Kalaallit Nunaat /Greenland
(Denmark)
 the Deaf in all Nordic countries
 the Roma
 the Finnish speakers in Norway and Sweden
CHANGES ?

There are some big changes, though, mostly
for the indigenous languages, Kalaallisut
(Greenlandic) and the Saami languages, but
to some extent also the Deaf and the
Finnish speakers in Sweden and Norway.
Very few changes have happened in relation
to the Romany languages or languages of
later immigrant minorities.
Language policies: the Inuits in Kalaallit
Nunaat/Greenland 1
The Greenlandic flag was introduced in 1985, designed
by the Greenlandic artist, Thue Christiansen. The flag
shows the symbol of the rising sun over the polar ice,
which stands for the return of the light and heat at midsummer. The colors, red and white like the Danish
national flag, are chosen to express Greenland's
relations to Denmark and Scandinavia.
Kalaallit is the plural form of kalaaleq, which means
'Greenlander'. The second word, Nunaat, means
'country'. In old sources the name inuit nunaat, country
of the inuits was used. Greenland is the Norse name
which Erik the Red gave the country around 985.
Language policies: the Inuits in Kalaallit
Nunaat/Greenland 2
Constitution
Greenland and the Faroe Islands are part of the
Kingdom of Denmark. All three areas have the
Danish Royal Family, the Constitution, foreign policy,
defence and the judicial system in common. Both
Greenland and the Faroe Islands have two seats in
the Danish parliament. Each of the three areas has
its own language and its own flag. Both Greenland
and Faroe Islands have Home Rule.
Source. http://www.gh.gl/uk/facts/context.htm
Language policies: the Inuits in Kalaallit
Nunaat/Greenland 3
Language
By Greenlandic law, Greenlandic is the official language.
Greenlandic and Danish language may be used in
politics and administration. Kalaallisut, Greenlandic,
belongs to the East-inuit family of languages and is
a polysyndetic language, which means that the
meaning-forming sentence elements used in other
words are fused into one word which may stand for
a whole sentence. Danish is used extensively. English
is the third language.
Source. http://www.gh.gl/uk/facts/context.htm
Language policies; Faroese (Denmark)
Section 11 of Act 137, 23 March 1948, on
Home Rule of the Faroe Islands:
”Faroese is recognized as the principal language,
but Danish is to be learnt well and carefully,
and Danish may be used as well as Faroese in
public affairs”.
Source: http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/EN/cadreprincipal.htm
Language policies: the Saami, in
Finland, Norway, Sweden
Today there are some 50.000-100.00
Saami in the Nordic countries (plus
very few in Russia). Nobody knows the numbers.
Probably around a third or fewer speak one of the
ten Saami languages. The legal situation is fairly
good in the Saami administrative areas in Norway
and Finland, less so in Sweden. Saami outside these
administrative areas have very few rights. The
question is to what extent the revitalisation efforts
have come too late for most of the Saami
Assimilationist language policies: the Deaf 1
Users of Sign languages have in all countries fewer
language rights than users of all spoken languages.
Invisibilation is one of the big problems for Sign
languages; they are often not thought of or
counted when languages are listed, or when
minority languages are granted some rights (no
country has, for instance, signed the European
Charter for Regional or Minority Languages for
any Sign language).
Assimilationist language policies: the Deaf 2
Stigmatisation and deficiency-based theorising are
other big problems for Sign languages; Signers
are mostly treated as handicapped only, and as
suffering from a deficiency, rather than being
treated as a linguistic minority.
Enforced oralism in schools (being taught orally
only, to the exclusion of Sign languages) and
enforced “integration” (i.e. submersion) into
hearing classrooms prevents Deaf students from
learning the only language through which they
can fully express themselves, a Sign language.
Positive Language policies: the Deaf 1
Sign languages are mentioned in constitutions or
similar documents and have some at least
symbolic protection in a dozen countries (the
Congo was the first country to mention them in
the Constitution, Finland was the second).
From 2005 New Zealand Sign language will most
probably be an official language in Aotearoa, on a
par with English and Māori.
Positive Language policies: the Deaf 2
There are teacher training programmes for teachers
of the Deaf. The best one is in Finland, University
of Jyväskylä, initiated and directed by Markku
Jokinen (President of the World Federation of the
Deaf). Entry requirement: native-like competence
in (Finnish) Sign language and written Finnish.
The aim of the 5-year programme is that teachers
will be able to teach the whole comprehensive
school curriculum through the medium of Sign
language.
Imperialist assimilatory educational
language policies towards Finnish
speakers in Norway and Sweden and
Saami in Sweden

The Finnish speakers in Norway and Sweden
(and the Saami in Sweden) have extremely few
educational linguistic human rights – even when
compared to the rights granted to minorities by
other European Union member countries
Educational linguistic human
rights, especially the right to
mother tongue medium education,
are among the most important
rights for any minority.
Without them, a minority whose
children attend school, usually
cannot reproduce itself as a
minority. It cannot integrate but is
forced to assimilate.
Claim 2
Both
indigenous peoples and most
linguistic minorities in the Nordic
countries still have to struggle to be
granted, even on paper and still
more in practice, some of those
basic linguistic human rights that
linguistic majorities take for granted
for themselves.
Question 2
Do we in the Nordic countries grant
educational LHRs for indigenous
peoples and linguistic minorities
with our ratifications of recent
human rights instruments?
Human rights instruments with LHRs in
education for linguistic minorities

The European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages, 1998
 The Hague Recommendation Regarding the
Education Rights of National Minorities from
OSCE's High Commissioner on National Minorities, 1996
(for interpretations, see also the UN Human Rights
Committee’s General Comment on ICCPR Art. 27, 1984)

UNESCO’ Position Paper Education in a
multilingual world, 2003
Who is included and excluded in the
(hard or soft law) human rights
instruments mentioned?

The European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages, 1998, explicitly excludes immigrant
minority languages. No country has ratified it for
any Sign language, even when Sign languages
fulfill all the requirements for being included.
Who is included and excluded in the
(hard or soft law) human rights
instruments mentioned?

The Hague Recommendation Regarding the
Education Rights of National Minorities from
OSCE's High Commissioner on National Minorities, 1996
(for interpretations, see also the UN Human Rights
Committee’s General Comment on ICCPR Art. 27, 1984)
UNESCO’ Position Paper Education in a
multilingual world, 2003
 BOTH (SHOULD) APPLY ALSO TO
IMMIGRANT MINORITIES AND SIGNERS

European Charter, Education Article 8,
choices for primary education (b)
i to make available primary education in the
relevant regional or minority languages, or
ii to make available a substantial part of primary
education in the relevant regional or minority
languages; or
iii to provide, within primary education, for the
teaching of the relevant regional or minority
languages as an integral part of the curriculum; or
iv to apply one of the measures provided for under i
to iii above at least to those pupils whose families so
request and whose number is considered sufficient.
Choices made in Education Article 8 for preschool (a)
i
ii
iii
-
Norway
X
Saami
-
Sweden
X
Saami, Finnish
& Meänkieli
-
Finland
Saami
Swedish
iv
X
X
-
UK
X
Welsh
Scottish-Gaelic X
Irish
X
Choices made in Education Article 8 for primary school (b)
i
ii
iii
iv
Norway
X
Saami
Sweden
Saami, Finnish
& Meänkieli
X
Finland
Saami
Swedish
X
X
UK
X
Welsh
Scottish-Gaelic X
Irish
X
Choices made in Education Article 8 for secondary school (c)
i
ii
iii
iv
Norway
X
Saami
Sweden
Saami, Finnish
& Meänkieli
X
Finland
Saami
Swedish
X
X
UK
X
Welsh
Scottish-Gaelic X
Irish
X
Choices made in Education Article 8 for technical & vocational
education (d)
i
ii
iii
iv
Norway
X
Saami
Sweden
Saami, Finnish
& Meänkieli
X
Finland
Saami
Swedish
X
X
UK
Welsh
Scottish-Gaelic
Irish
X
X
X
Choices made in Education Article 8 for university and higher
education (e)
i
ii
iii
-
Norway
X
Saami
-
Sweden
X
Saami, Finnish
& Meänkieli
-
Finland
Saami
Swedish
X
X
-
UK
Welsh
Scottish-Gaelic
Irish
iv
X
X
X
How have these (few) rights
been formulated in the HRs
instruments?
Do they grant firm rights?
Binding educational
clauses of human rights
instruments have more
opt-outs, modifications,
alternatives, claw-backs,
etc. than other Articles
Council of Europe’s
Framework Convention for the
Protection of National Minorities
and
The European Charter for Regional
or Minority Languages,
both in force since 1998.
Council of Europe’s Framework Convention
for the Protection of National Minorities

In areas inhabited by persons belonging to
national minorities traditionally or in substantial
numbers, if there is sufficient demand, the
parties shall endeavour to ensure, as far as
possible and within the framework of their
education systems, that persons belonging to
those minorities have adequate opportunities for
being taught in the minority language or for
receiving instruction in this language (emphases
added).
Framework Convention for the Protection of
National Minorities
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages:
 ‘as far as possible’
 ‘within the framework of [the State's] education
systems’,
 ‘appropriate measures’
 ‘adequate opportunities’
 ‘if there is sufficient demand’
 ‘substantial numbers’
 ‘pupils who so wish in a number considered sufficient’
 ‘if the number of users of a regional or minority
language justifies it’.
Claim 3
 In
relation to immigrated minorities, there is
no linguistic democracy whatsoever.
 Linguistic genocide (defined in terms of the
United Nations Genocide Convention,
Articles 2b) and 2e) continues in schools
Question 3
 Can
what happens in Nordic schools in the
education of immigrated minorities, be
seen as linguistic genocide (defined in terms
of the United Nations Genocide Convention,
Articles 2b and 2e)?
UN International Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide (E793, 1948)
has five definitions of genocide.
Two of them fit today’s indigenous &
minority education
Article II(e): 'forcibly
transferring children of the
group to another group'; and
Article II(b): 'causing serious
bodily or mental harm to
members of the group';
(emphasis added).
Human Rights disappearing? Denmark & forcible transfer of
children (Genocide Convention)

Integration Chair of the governing party Venstre, Irene
Simonsen suggests in an interview that ethnic minority
children growing up in Muslim homes should be forcibly
taken away from their homes, to be brought up by Danes.
The way their parents bring them up, in isolation from the
Danish society, cannot be accepted in a democratic society.

Morning News on Danish Radio, 15th September 2004

My comment: This would violate the UN Genocide
Convention; there have been several serious suggestions
by politicians in Denmark that HR conventions need to
be ”reconsidered and modernised”.
Agents of linguistic genocide
Educational systems and mass media
are (the most) important direct
agents in linguistic and cultural
genocide. Behind them are the
world’s economic, techno-military
and political systems.
What exactly do
research results say,
then?
Summing up two large-scale wellcontrolled studies
If indigenous or minority children who
speak their mother tongue at home, are to
become bilingual, and learn the
dominant/majority language well, a
common sense approach would suggest
that (1) early start, and (2) maximum
exposure to the dominant language would
be good ideas, like they are for learning
many other things - practice makes perfect.
In fact, both are false.
What we have is
an early start fallacy, and
a maximum exposure fallacy
In fact…
… the longer indigenous and minority
children in a low-status position have
their own language as the main
medium of teaching, the better they
also become in the dominant language,
provided, of course, that they have good
teaching in it, preferably given by
bilingual teachers.
Ramirez et al. study, 1991, 2,352 students
Group
Medium of education Results
English
only
English
Low levels of English
and school achievement;
likely not to catch up
Early-exit Spanish 1-2 years;
transithen all English
tional
Fairly low levels of
English and school
achievement; not likely
to catch up
Late-exit Spanish 4-6 years;
transi- then all English
tional
Best results; likely to
catch up with native
speakers of English
Ramirez et al. study, 1991, 2,352 students
The common sense approach would suggest
that the ones who started early and had
most exposure to English, the Englishonly students, would have the best results
in English, and in mathematics and in
educational achievement in general, and that
the late-exit students who started late with
English-medium education and
consequently had least exposure to English,
would do worst in English etc.
Ramirez et al. study, 1991, 2,352 students
In fact the results were exactly the opposite.
The late-exit students got the best results,
and they were the only ones who had a
chance to achieve native levels of English
later on, whereas the other two groups were,
after an initial boost, falling more and more
behind, and were judged as probably never
being able to catch up to native Englishspeaking peers in English or general school
achievement.
Thomas & Collier, 210,000 students 1
 the largest longitudinal study in the world on the education of
minority students,
 with altogether over 210,000 students,
 including in-depth studies in both urban and rural settings in the
USA,
 included full MTM programmes in a minority language,
 dual-medium or two-way bilingual programmes, where both a
minority and majority language (mainly Spanish and English) were
used as medium of instruction,
 transitional bilingual education programmes,
 ESL (English as a second language) programmes, and
 so-called mainstream (i.e. English-only submersion) programmes.
Thomas & Collier, 210,000 students 2
Across all the models, those students who
reached the highest levels of both
bilingualism and school achievement were
the ones where the children's mother tongue
was the main medium of education for the
most extended period of time.
 This length of education in the L1
(language 1, first language), was the
strongest predictor of both the children's
competence and gains in L2, English, and of
their school achievement.
Thomas & Collier, 210,000 students 3
Thomas & Collier state (2002: 7):
“the strongest predictor of L2
student achievement is the
amount of formal L1
schooling. The more L1
grade-level schooling, the
higher L2 achievement.”
Ramirez and Thomas & Collier 1
The length of mother tongue medium
education was in both Ramirez' and Thomas
& Collier's studies more important than
any other factor in predicting the
educational success of bilingual students.
It was also much more important than socioeconomic status, something extremely vital
in relation to oppressed indigenous students.
Ramirez and Thomas & Collier 2
The worst results, were with students
in regular submersion programmes
where the students' mother tongues
(L1s) were either not supported at all
or where they only had some mothertongue-as-a-subject instruction. This
is known as a subtractive learning
situation.
There are hundreds of smaller studies
showing similar conclusions,
with
many different types of groups
and many languages,
and from many countries.
And the knowledge is not new…
All these studies show both
the positive results of additive
mother tongue medium
maintenance education, and the
mostly negative results of
subtractive dominant-language
medium education.
Dominant-language-only
submersion programmes “are
widely attested as the least effective
educationally for minority language
students”
(May & Hill 2003: 14, study commisioned by the Maori
Section of the Aotearoa/New Zealand Ministry of
Education).
If education mainly through the
medium of their own languages, at
least during the first 6-8 years, is what
research recommends for indigenous
and minority children, is this how
immigrant minority children are being
taught in the Nordic countries today?
NO!
Most immigrant minority children in the
Nordic countries are in submersion
programmes, with the wrong medium of
teaching.
They are taught
SUBTRACTIVELY.
Subtractive versus additive 1
SUBTRACTIVE
teaching
through the medium of a
dominant language replaces
the children’s mother tongue.
It subtracts from their
linguistic repertoir.
Subtractive versus additive 2
ADDITIVE teaching through the medium
of the mother tongue, with good teaching
of the dominant language as a second
language, adds to children’s linguistic
repertoir and makes them HIGH LEVEL
BILINGUAL OR MULTILINGUAL.
They learn both their own language and
other languages well.
Research results are NOT
being implemented.
Nordic states do NOT act in a
rational way.
There are very large gaps
between
theory and practice,
 research and
implementation, and
 rhetoric and realities.

To qualify as genocide, an act has to be
intentional. Have states had an intention to
'forcibly transfer children of the group to
another group'; and
'cause serious bodily or mental harm to
members of the group' ?
YES, unfortunately THEY HAVE
to members of the group'
Have the states known? 1
The negative results of subtractive teaching
have been known already at the end of the
1800s. States and educational authorities
(including churches) have had the knowledge.
 ”Modern” research results about how
indigenous and minority education should be
organised have been available for at least 50
years, since the UNESCO expert group book
”The use of vernacular languages in
education” (1953).
Board of Indian Commissioners 1880: 77
 …first
teaching the children to read and
write in their own language enables them
to master English with more ease when
they take up that study…
 …a child beginning a four years’ course
with the study of Dakota would be further
advanced in English at the end of the term
than one who had not been instructed in
Dakota.
Board of Indian Commissioners 1880: 98
…it
is true that by beginning in the
Indian tongue and then putting the
students into English studies our
missionaries say that after three or
four years their English is better
than it would have been if they had
begun entirely with English.
Have the states known? 2
If states, despite this, and despite very positive
results from properly conducted additive
teaching, have continued and continue to
offer subtractive education, with no
alternatives, knowing that the results are
likely to be negative and thus to 'forcibly
transfer children of the group to another
group'; and 'cause serious bodily or mental
harm to members of the group'
this must be seen as intentional.
Final question 4
 Are
there arguments for why the states are in
fact working against their own interests by
not granting full democratic linguistic
human rights to all residents, and supporting
these rights globally?
 What kind of positive openings might there
be?
FOUR REASONS FOR LINGUISTIC HUMAN
RIGHTS IN EDUCATION AND MAINTENANCE OF
ALL THE WORLD’S LANGUAGES
Reason 1

Prevent linguistic
genocide
But are there (other) reasons for
maintaining minorities and minority
languages? Are there reasons for
maintaining the world’s linguistic
diversity?
Would it not be better if all of us spoke
just a few languages – or just one?
FOUR REASONS FOR LINGUISTIC HUMAN
RIGHTS IN EDUCATION AND MAINTENANCE OF
ALL THE WORLD’S LANGUAGES
Reason 2
English
is not enough
Supply and demand theories
predict:
When many people possess what earlier was a
scarce commodity (near-native English), the
price goes down. The value of ’perfect’
English skills as a financial incentive
decreases substantially when a high proportion
of a country’s or a region’s or the world’s
population know English well
Figure 1. The market diagram (Grin 2003: 26)
Price
Supply
P*
Demand
Quantity
Q*
Figure 2. The market for high levels of English;
what happens when supply is higher than
demand? Consequences for market equilibrium
Price
Supply
2020?
P*
2004?
Demand
Quantity
Q*
When the supply (number of people with ”good” English) goes up,
the price (its usefulness for individuals on the job market) goes down
FOUR REASONS FOR LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN
EDUCATION AND MAINTENAN-CE OF ALL THE WORLD’S
LANGUAGES
Reason 3
Creativity and new ideas are the main assets
(cultural capital) in a knowledge society and
a prerequisite for humankind to adapt to
change and to find solutions to the
catastrophes of our own making.
Multilingualism enhances creativity,
monolingualism and homogenisation kill it.
Industrial
society
 Main product:
commodities
 Those who control
access to raw
materials and own
the other
prerequisites and
means of
production, do well
Knowledge
society
• Main product:
•
knowledge, ideas
Those who have
access to diverse
knowledges,
diverse
information,
diverse ideas:
creativity, do well
In knowledge societies uniformity is
a handicap
 Some uniformity might have
promoted aspects of industrialisation
 In post-industrial knowledge
societies uniformity will be a
definite handicap
Creativity, innovation, investment - results of additive
teaching and multilingualism
• Creativity precedes innovation, also in commodity
•
•
•
•
production.
Investment follows creativity.
Multilingualism can enhance creativity.
High-level multilinguals as a group often do better than
corresponding monolinguals on tests measuring several
aspects of 'intelligence', creativity, divergent thinking,
cognitive flexibility, etc.
Additive teaching can lead to high-level
multilingualism
What are the costs involved in
people not understanding the
messages (also in education!) and
not being able to fully utilise their
potential and creativity?
FOUR REASONS FOR LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN
EDUCATION AND MAINTENAN-CE OF ALL THE WORLD’S
LANGUAGES
Reason 4
• Linguistic diversity and biodiversity are
correlationally and causally related.
• Knowledge about how to maintain
biodiversity is encoded in small languages.
• Through killing them we kill the
prerequisites for maintaining biodiversity.
Ecological diversity essential for longterm planetary survival
Uniformity can endanger a species by
providing inflexibility and
unadaptability. As languages and
cultures die, the testimony of human
intellectual achievement is lessened.
(Baker 2001)
Strongest ecosystems are most diverse
(Baker 2001)

In the language of ecology, the strongest
ecosystems are those that are the most diverse.
Diversity is directly related to stability; variety is
important for long-term survival. Our success on
this planet has been due to an ability to adapt to
different kinds of environment over thousands of
years. Such ability is born out of diversity. Thus
language and cultural diversity maximises
chances of human success and adaptability .’
(Baker 2001)
The role of indigenous peoples
Most of the world’s megabiodiversity is in areas
under the management or guardianship of
indigenous peoples
 Most of the world’s linguistic diversity resides in
the small languages of indigenous peoples
 Much of the detailed knowledge of how to
maintain biodiversity is encoded in the languages
of indigenous peoples

Indigenous peoples are/have the key
to our planetary survival
Indigenous self-determination is a
necessary prerequisite
for the survival
of the planet.
Biocultural diversity
(= biodiversity + linguistic diversity +
cultural diversity)
is essential for long-term
planetary survival
because it enhances creativity and
adaptability and thus stability.
LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY DISAPPEARS MUCH FASTER THAN
BIODIVERSITY
Estimates for extinct / seriously endangered
species and languages
around the year 2100
ESTIMATES
Biological species
Languages
‘Optimistic realistic‘
2%
50%
‘Pessimistic realistic‘
20%
90%
Today we are killing biocultural
diversity
faster than ever before
in human history
FOUR REASONS FOR LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN
EDUCATION AND MAINTENAN-CE OF ALL THE WORLD’S
LANGUAGES
Reason 4
• Linguistic diversity and biodiversity are
correlationally and causally related.
• Knowledge about how to maintain
biodiversity is encoded in small languages.
• Through killing them we kill the
prerequisites for maintaining biodiversity.
Mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians =
higher vertebrates
All these animals
are higher
vertebrates
Endemic languages & vertebrates, top 25 countries (Harmon)
Endemic languages
Number
Endemic higher
vertebrates
Number
1. PAPUA NEW GUINEA
847
1. AUSTRALIA
1.346
2. INDONESIA
655
2. MEXICO
761
3. Nigeria
376
3. BRAZIL
725
4. INDIA
309
4. INDONESIA
673
5. AUSTRALIA
261
5. Madagascar
537
6. MEXICO
230
6. PHILIPPINES
437
7. CAMEROON
201
7. INDIA
373
8. BRAZIL
185
8. PERU
332
9. ZAIRE
158
9. COLOMBIA
330
10. PHILIPPINES
153
10. Ecuador
294
11. USA
143
11. USA
284
12. Vanuatu
105
12. CHINA
256
13. TANZANIA
101
13. PAPUA NEW GUINEA
203
14. Sudan
97
14. Venezuela
186
15. Malaysia
92
15. Argentina
168
16. ETHIOPIA
90
16. Cuba
152
17. CHINA
77
17. South Africa
146
18. PERU
75
18. ZAIRE
134
19. Chad
74
19. Sri Lanka
126
20. Russia
71
20. New Zealand
120
21. SOLOMON ISLANDS
69
21. TANZANIA
113
22. Nepal
68
22. Japan
112
23. COLOMBIA
55
23. CAMEROON
105
24. Côte d'Ivoire
51
24. SOLOMON ISLANDS
101
25. Canada
47
25. ETHIOPIA
26. Somalia
88
88
Languages and flowering plants
There is also a
high correlation between
languages and
flower-ing
plants; a region
often has many
of both, or few
of both
(David Harmon)
Languages and butterflies,
also a high correlation
Where there
are many
languages
there are
also often
many
butterflies
…
(David
Harmon)
FOUR REASONS FOR LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN
EDUCATION AND MAINTENAN-CE OF ALL THE WORLD’S
LANGUAGES
Reason 4
• Linguistic diversity and biodiversity are
correlationally and causally related.
• Knowledge about how to maintain
biodiversity is encoded in small
languages.
• Through killing them we kill the
prerequisites for maintaining biodiversity.
Conclusions
Oviedo & Maffi 2002: 2

Correlations between Global 200 ecoregions as reservoirs
of high biodiversity and areas of concentration of human
diversity are clearly very significant, and unequivocally
stress the need to involve indigenous and traditional
peoples in ecoregional conservation work.
 Furthermore, there is evidence from many parts of the
world that healthy, non-degraded ecosystems - such as
dense, little disturbed tropical rainforests in places like
the Amazon, Borneo or Papua New Guinea - are often
inhabited only by indigenous and traditional peoples
(emphasis added).
Indigenous peoples as agents in maintaining
biodiversity through TEK (Traditional
Ecological Knowledge)

The least biodiversity-wise degraded areas tend to
be areas inhabited by indigenous peoples only.
Since the degradation is mainly created by
humans, a conclusion is that those indigenous
peoples who have not been colonised by others,
have been and are important agents in the
maintenance of biodiversity. The knowledge they
have when interacting with nature in nondegrading ways is part of what has been called
"traditional ecological knowledge" (TEK)
Traditional Ecological Knowledge" (TEK)
"indigenous
and other local peoples' knowledge and
beliefs about and use of the natural world,
their ecological concepts,
and their natural resource management institutions
and practices“
(Oviedo & Maffi 2000: 6)
Traditional Ecological Knowledge" (TEK)
"a cumulative body of knowledge, practice and
belief, evolving by adaptive processes
and handed down through generations by cultural
transmission,
about the relationships of living beings (including
humans)
with one another and with their environment"
(Berkes 1999: 8)
Traditional Ecological Knowledge" (TEK)
"in-depth knowledge of plant and animal species,
their mutual relationships, and local ecosystems
held by indigenous or traditional communities,
developed and handed down through generations"
(Skutnabb-Kangas, Maffi & Harmon 2003:
Glossary).
Traditional = backward, non-scientific? 1

Traditional" to some researchers still seems to
mean backward, static, non-scientific, foreclosing
all economic and social mobility and
opportunities
Traditional = backward, non-scientific? 2

TEK "is found to be more complete and accurate
than Western scientific knowledge of local
environments" (Oviedo & Maffi 2000; 6-7).
Several articles in Maffi (ed., 2002) and Posey
(ed., 1999) also testify to this.

Few people seem to know, for instance, that the
Linnean categories were based on ancient Saami
categorisation of nature
Traditional knowledge is not static

Four Directions Council in Canada (1996, quoted from
Posey 1999: 4) describes:

What is "traditional" about traditional knowledge is not its
antiquity, but the way it is acquired and used. In other
words, the social process of learning and sharing
knowledge, which is unique to each indigenous culture,
lies at the very heart of its "traditionality". Much of this
knowledge is actually quite new, but it has a social
meaning, and legal character, entirely unlike the
knowledge indigenous people acquire from settlers and
industrialized societies.
Transmission process of TEK in danger 1, ICSU

“Universal education programs provide important tools for human
development, but they may also compromise the transmission of
indigenous language and knowledge. Inadvertently, they may
contribute to the erosion of cultural diversity, a loss of social
cohesion and the alienation and disorientation of youth. […] In
short, when indigenous children are taught in science class that the
natural world is ordered as scientists believe it functions, then the
validity and authority of their parents’ and grandparents’
knowledge is denied. While their parents may posses an extensive
and sophisticated understanding of the local environment,
classroom instruction implicitly informs that science is the ultimate
authority for interpreting “reality” and by extension local
indigenous knowledge is second rate and obsolete”.
Transmission process of TEK in danger 2

“Actions are urgently needed to enhance the
intergenerational transmission of local and indigenous
knowledge. […] Traditional knowledge conservation
therefore must pass through the pathways of conserving
language (as language is an essential tool for culturallyappropriate encoding of knowledge)”.
from The International Council for Science (ICSU )
2002 report
Science, Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development)
see www.icsu.org
FOUR REASONS FOR LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN
EDUCATION AND MAINTENAN-CE OF ALL THE WORLD’S
LANGUAGES
Reason 4
• Linguistic diversity and biodiversity are
•
•
correlationally and causally related.
Knowledge about how to maintain biodiversity
is encoded in small languages.
Through killing them we kill the prerequisites
for maintaining biodiversity.
Transmission process of TEK in danger 3

TEK is necessarily encoded into the local languages of
the peoples whose knowledge it is. This means that if
these local languages disappear, without the knowledge
being transferred to other, bigger languages, the
knowledge is lost.
 Question 1: Is the knowledge transferred to other
languages? The answer is NO.

Question 2: Are languages disappearing? The answer
is YES.
Transmission process of TEK in danger 4
Question 1: Is the knowledge transferred to other
languages? The answer is NO
- - most indigenous children do not receive teaching
in and through the medium of their own languages the knowledge is not transferred to dominant
languages which do not have the vocabulary for
these nuances
- - school does not have the discourses needed (it is
formal rather than informal education)
Transmission process of TEK in danger 5

Question 2: Are languages disappearing? The
answer is YES.
Diane Ackerman 1997
We are among the rarest of the rare not because of our
numbers, but because of the unlikeliness of our being
here at all, the pace of our evolution, our powerful
grip on the whole planet, and the precariousness of
our future. We are evolutionary whiz kids who are
better able to transform the world than to understand
it. Other animals cannot evolve fast enough to cope
with us. It is possible that we may also become
extinct, and if we do, we will not be the only species
that sabotaged itself, merely the only one that could
have prevented it.