ANNALES • Ser. hist, socio!. • 9 • 1999 -1 (16)
original scientific paper UDC 811:339.97
received: 1999-01-14 342.7:811
LINGUISTIC AND BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY, THE 'FREE MARKET' AND THE 
FUTURE OF THE PLANET - DO LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN 
EDUCATION HAVE ANY POWER?1
Tove SKUTNABB-KANGAS 
Roskilde Universitetscenter, DK-4000 Roskilde, Postboks 260
A B S T R A C T
Languagues are today being killed faster than ever before in human history. Biodiversity on the one hand and 
linguistic and cultural diversity on the other hand are correlated', and there is mounting evidence that there might be 
a casual relationship, a human-environment coevolution. An active agent is killing languagues faster than ever is the 
tiumphalist proclamation o f the "free" market system as a necessary and positive concomitant o f globalisation. 
Homogenisation and monocultural efficency cause stress on both nature and people and participate in killing 
diversity. The consciousness industry, schools and media, are the main direct agents o f linguistic genocide in 
education.
The purpose o f international human rights law is to act as correctives to the free market, to overrule the law of 
supply and demand and remove price-tags from people and from necessities for their survival. These include not 
only basic food and housing, but also basic civil, political and cultural rights. Linguistic human rights, especially in 
education, a necessary precondition for preservation o f linguistic diversity, are at present completely insufficient for 
protecting and maintaining linguistic diversity, despite some recent positive developments.
Key words: linguistic diversity, linguistic human rights, economic globalisation, redistribution of resources, civil
society, linguistic genocide, linguicism
DIVERSITÁ LINGÜISTICA E BIO LO GICA, LIBERO M ERCATO E FU TU RO  DELLA TERRA - 
I DIRITTI LINGUISTIC! D ELL'U O M O  HAN N O  UN MINIMO D'IN FLUEN ZA NEL SETTORE 
DELL'ISTRUZIONE?
SINTESI
Oggi le lingue spariscono piu velocemente che in qualsiasi altro periodo della storia umana. La varietá biológica 
da una parte e quella lingüistica e cultúrale dall'altra sono interdipendenti, come dimostrato da mold esempi relativi 
ad un rapporto esemplare, la coevoluzione uomo-ambiente. L 'affermazione trionfale del sistema di "libero" mercato, 
accompagnatore indipensabile e positivo della globalizzazione, fa sparire le lingue molto piu in fretta di un tempo. 
L 'omogeneizzazione e la monocultura incidono sulla natura e sugli uomini e contribuiscono all'eliminazione delle 
differenze. La coscienza, le scuole e i mass media sono i responsabili diretti del genocidio lingüístico nel campo 
dell'istruzione.
1 Thanks are due to my husband and colleague Robert Phillipson (see Phillipson, 1992; Phillipson, 1999).
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La legge internazionale sui diritti umani dovrebbe fungere da correttore nel libero mercato, avere il sopravvento 
sulla domanda e l'offerta ed eliminare il disvalore degli uomini e dei prodotti essenziali alia loro sopravvivenza. 
Non solo degli alimenti indipensabili e dell'abitazione ma anche dei fondamentali diritti civili, politici e culturali. I 
diritti linguistici che sono, specie nell'istruzione, condizione primaria per il mantenimento della varietá lingüistica, 
sono anualmente, nonostante alcuni elementi positivi registrad di recente, del tutto insufficienti alia tutela e al 
mantenimento della varietá di lingue.
Parole chiave: diversitá lingüistica, diritto lingüístico dell'uomo, globalizzazione economica, ridistribuzione delle 
materie prime, societá civile, genocidio lingüístico, linguizzismo
LINGUISTIC, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL 
DIVERSITY
Our environment consists of at least the following 
three parts, in addition to the spiritual environment: our 
biological environment, our linguistic environment and 
our cultural environment. The present diversity in all 
three areas is very seriously threatened by globalisation 
and by what is falsely called the 'free' market.
Today linguistic and cultural diversity are disappear­
ing relatively much much faster than biological diver­
sity. And languages are today being killed at a much 
faster pace than ever before in human history. Linguists 
agree that minimally 50% of today's oral languages will 
no longer be spoken in hundred years' time, and several 
linguists estimate that 90% of today's oral languages 
may be gone by the year 2100. And all sign languages 
are threatened. So what, some people could say. All lin­
guists could give hundreds of reasons for why this 
should not be allowed to happen. I will present one that 
is less well known (for elaborations, see Maffi et al., in 
press; Skutnabb-Kangas, 1999, in press).
Linguistic and cultural diversity are as necessary for 
the existence of our planet as biodiversity. They are cor­
related: where one type is high, the other one is too. 
Languages, like all biological species, get thicker on the 
ground as you approach the equator. There are 
'remarkable overlaps between global mappings of the 
world's areas of biological megadiversity and areas of 
high linguistic diversity', and likewise a 'correlation 
between low-diversity cultural systems and low biodi­
versity' (Maffi, 1996).
In Table 1, conservationist David Harmon (1995) 
compares endemism in language and in higher verte­
brates (mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians), taking 
the top 25 countries for both. Harmon has derived the 
figures for endemic languages from Grimes Ethnologue 
(1992)2 and for species from WCMC (1992, 139-141). 
The countries which are on both lists are BOLDED AND 
CAPITALISED.
16 of the 25 countries are on both lists, a concur­
rence of 64%. According to Harmon, it is highly uin- 
likely to be accidental, and he gives factors accounting 
for it which I do not have time to go into.
But the relationship between linguistic and cultural 
diversity on the one hand and biodiversity on the other 
hand is not only correlational. There seems to be 
mounting evidence that it might be causal. Ethnobiolo- 
gists, human-ecologists and others have proposed 
'theories of "human-environment coevolution'", includ­
ing the assumption that 'cultural diversity might en­
hance biodiversity or vice versa' (Maffi, 1996) The fore­
seeable consequences of massive disruption of such 
long-standing interactions may lead the planet to a ca­
tastrophe. The United Nations Environmental Program 
(UNEP), one of the organisations behind the 1992 Rio 
Biodiversity conference, acknowledges the connection 
between biological resources and human resources. It 
has just produced a companion volume to the Rio bio­
diversity book, on Cultural and Spiritual Values of Bio­
diversity. In the chapter on Language Diversity (Maffi et 
al., in press), Luisa Maffi and I argue that the preserva­
tion of the world's linguistic diversity must be incorpo­
rated as an essential goal in any bioculturally-oriented 
diversity conservation program (from Executive Sum­
mary).
2 The so far most comprehensive total (and on-line searchable) listing of the world's (mostly oral) languages are in the 13th edition of 
Ethnologue, edited by Barbara F. Grimes (1996) of the Summer Institute of Linguistics; the latest estimates can be found in the up­
dated 13th edition on the W eb: http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/.
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Tab. 1: Endemism in language and higher vertebrates: comparison o f the top 25 countries. 
Tab. 1: Endemizem v jeziku in pri višjih vretenčarjih: primerjave med vodilnimi 25 državami.
Endemic languages Number Endemic higher vertebrates species 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
1 4 .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 2 2 .Japan 112
23. COLOMBIA 55 23. CAMEROON 105
24. Cote d'Ivoire 51 24. SOLOMON ISLANDS 101
25. Canada 47 25. ETHIOPIA 88
26. Somalia 88
Source: Harmon 1995, 14. Figures for Ethiopia include Eritrea. Reptiles are not included for USA, China and Papua New Guinea.
It is interesting, then, that loss of biodiversity has had 
massive attention all over the world - many people are 
worried about it. But few people talk of loss of linguistic 
diversity. Still, linguistic diversity is today disappearing 
relatively much much faster than biological diversity, in 
the sense that the percentage of languages that will per­
ish/be killed in the next century is larger than the per­
centage of all biological species that will be killed dur­
ing the same time. As compared to the threat of lan­
guages (90% moribund, endangered, or threatened), the 
threat to biodiversity is 'relatively mild1, according to 
Krauss (1992, 7). If we make a very simple calculation, 
estimating the rate of extinction with today's situation as 
the starting point, 90% of today's languages would ac­
cording to Krauss be extinct in 100 years' time, whereas 
20% of today's species would, according to a 
'pessimistic realistic' estimate (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1999, 
chapter 2), and 2% according to an 'optimistic realistic' 
estimate. 'Preservation of the linguistic and cultural 
heritage of humankind' (one of Unesco's declared goals) 
has been seen by many researchers and politicians as a 
nostalgic primordialist dream (creating employment for
the world's linguists). The perpetuation of linguistic 
diversity is, on the contrary, a necessity for the survival 
of the planet, in a similar way to biodiversity.
LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS NEEDED TO 
MAINTAIN DIVERSITY
Some of the direct main agents for this linguistic (and 
cultural) genocide are parts of what we call the con­
sciousness industry: formal education and the mass 
media (including television, 'cultural nerve gas' as Mi­
chael Krauss (1992, 6) has called it).
Language rights in education are central for the 
maintenance of languages and for prevention of linguis­
tic and cultural genocide, regardless of whether this 
education happens in schools, formally, or in the homes 
and communities, informally, and regardless of whether 
and to what extent literacy is involved. Transmission of 
languages from the parent generation to children is the 
most vital factor for the maintenance of languages. Chil­
dren must have the opportunity of learning their parents' 
idiom3 fully and properly so that they become (at least)
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as proficient as the parents. Language learning in this 
sense has to continue at least into young adulthood, for 
many functions throughout life. When more and more 
children get access to formal education, much of their 
more formal language learning which earlier happened 
in the community, happens in schools. If an alien lan­
guage is used in schools, i.e. if children do not have the 
right to learn and use their language in schools, the lan­
guage is not going to survive because children educated 
through the medium of an alien language are not likely 
to pass their own language on to their children and 
grandchildren (as Pirjo Janulf (1998) has shown, see 
below). "Modernization" has accelerated the death/ 
murder of languages which without formal education 
had survived for centuries or millennia. One of the main 
agents in killing languages is thus the linguistic genocide 
which happens in formal education, every time indi­
genous or minority children (or dominated group 
children even if they are a majority in terms of numbers) 
are educated in a dominant language.
For maintenance and development of languages, 
educational linguistic rights, including the right to 
mother tongue medium education, are absolutely vital. I 
would not hesitate in calling educational language 
rights the most important linguistic human rights if we 
are interested in maintaining linguistic and cultural di­
versity on our planet. One possible tool in maintaining 
and developing languages is to refer to linguistic human 
rights, when demanding mother tongue medium educa­
tion. This of course presupposes that mother tongue 
medium education in fact IS a human right. In the fol­
lowing section I show what the situation is today.
My claim is that with few exceptions - and many of 
the exceptions are represented, for instance, in the 
European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages - most of 
the education that most indigenous peoples and most 
minorities in the world, including immigrant and refugee 
minorities, receive today, is a direct agent in murdering 
languages and cultures. States commit genocide in their 
educational systems. This happens according to two
Tab. 2 : Overview o f subjects in Janulf 1998.
Tab. 2 : Pregled skupin po Janulfu (1998).
definitions of linguistic genocide. Linguistic genocide 
sounds drastic. We need to define it. When the United 
Nations worked on the final draft of what was to be­
come The Convention on the Prevention and Punish­
ment of the Crime of Genocide (E 794, 1948), a defini­
tion of linguistic genocide was included in Article 111.1 :
"Prohibiting the use of the language of the group in 
daily intercourse or in schools, or the printing and circu­
lation of publications in the language of the group."
In the final vote in General Assembly, Art. Ill was 
voted down, and is NOT part of the final Convention 
(Capotorti, 1979). Still, the definition can be used. If we 
accept the claim that "prohibition" can be direct or indi­
rect, it follows that if the minority language is not used as 
a medium of education in the preschool/school and if 
there are no minority teachers in the school, the use of 
the language is indirectly prohibited in daily intercourse/ 
in schools, i.e. it is a question of linguistic genocide.
But when Article 3.1 in the Genocide Convention 
was rejected, another Article still stayed in. The UN 
Genocide Convention still defines it as genocide if chil­
dren in a group are forcibly transferred to another group. 
And this is also what happens in the more sophisticated 
type of linguistic genocide in education that the Western 
states are guilty of. I will give an example.
Pirjo Janulf defended her doctorate in Stockholm in 
September 1998. In her longitudinal study she had sev­
eral bilingual and monolingual groups in Finland and 
Sweden, altogether 1,389 students. 411 Finland Swedish 
minority students from Âbo, Finland (Group A, my des­
ignation), participated. There were a total of 560 second 
generation Sweden Finns from Botkyrka, Sweden. 273 of 
them were in Finnish medium classes (FM) (group B) 
and 287 in Swedish medium classes (SM) (group C). 
There were also 'monolingual' control groups in both 
Finland (group D) and Sweden (group E). Question­
naires, tests and essays were used in 1980 and 1995. 
Reading and writing skills in both languages were com­
pared. Table 2 (based on information given in janulf,
1998) presents an overview of the groups:
N Group Country Mother tongue Medium of education Comments
A. N=411 Finland Swedish Swedish
B. N=273 Sweden Finnish Finnish
C. N=287 Sweden Finnish Swedish
D. N=133 Finland Finnish Finnish Controls
E. N=285 Sweden Swedish Swedish Controls
3 Using the term 'idiom' (rather than 'language') signals that it really means 'what the parents speak (or sign)', regardless of whether 
this is called a language, a dialect, a sociolect, a vernacular, or whatever - it does not need to be the standard or official language of 
the area/country or the return in census, or be written. See Miihlhausler, 1996 for insightful discussion on this.
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I shall only mention two results from the study. The 
most bilingual group was A (those in a full maintenance 
programme, in an officially bilingual city in Finland 
where Swedish-speakers are a small minority). This mi­
nority group in Finland achieved better results on the 
Swedish tests than any other groups, including the 
Swedish-speaking Swedish-educated control group E in 
Sweden. Group A also had considerably better results in 
Finnish tests than group C, even if these are native 
speakers of Finnish. Compared to group B, group A stu­
dents read Finnish just as well or better but wrote less 
well. Thus it is clear that a mother tongue medium 
maintenance programme for a minority, a programme 
which respects educational linguistic human rights, 
leads to high levels of bilingualism.
Secondly, in one sub-study, '41 former Sweden 
Finnish informants with an average age of 27 were re­
visited. Those who had been in the Swedish classes 
[group C] tended to let Swedish take over at home while 
those who had been in the Finnish classes [group B] 
used both languages. Sixteen of the former informants 
had children of their own. The language chosen when 
speaking to their children correlated with their own lan­
guage skills and the language of their partner. None of 
those who had been in the Swedish classes [C] spoke 
Finnish with their children. Among those who were in 
Finnish classes [B] various combinations of languages 
were applied: 40% spoke Finnish, 25% spoke both lan­
guages and 33% spoke Swedish. Nearly 90% of those 
who had been in Finnish classes [B] wanted their chil­
dren to learn Finnish in school.' (Janulf, 1998, Abstract)
Those minority children, Swedish-speakers in Fin­
land, who receive most of their education through the 
medium of their own language while studying the domi­
nant language as a second language, taught by bilingual 
teachers, become high level bilinguals, and can pass on 
their minority language to their children. Those minority 
children, Finnish-speakers in Sweden, who are in Fin­
nish-medium education, can achieve this too. But those 
Finnish-speaking children in Sweden who received Swe­
dish-medium education, speak Swedish to their chil­
dren. Not one of them passes on their language to their 
children. This means that their children are forcibly 
transferred to another group, since the parents did not 
have any choice. The Swedish state and many local 
authorities in Sweden have repeatedly tried to prevent 
Finnish-medium education (Municio, 1994; Municio, 
1996; Lainio, 1997; Skutnabb-Kangas, 1996a; Skutnabb- 
Kangas, 1998a). This is how states violate linguistic 
human rights of minority children and commit linguistic 
genocide.
In order to understand the background, I turn to the 
role of the state, not historically - there are many analy­
ses of that - but today.
THE CONFLICTING ROLES OF THE STATE
Commodification, not human rights, seems to be the 
driving force of the world at the end of the millennium. 
Everything can be bought and sold. The economic con­
cerns of so called investors overrule everything else. 
Material and virtual capital seem to be the means and 
the end, dominating our lives. What was first 'The Asian 
Crisis', then spreading to Latin America and Russia, is 
now all over, and it legitimates any number of drastic 
measures.
The role of the state in this crisis and in general 
seems to be extremely complex and contradictory. On 
the one hand - and this is the opinion of the director of 
the German Bundesbank, Tietmeyer4 - states are sup­
posed to do everything in their power to maintain the 
confidence and trust of the investors, especially the trans­
national companies, otherwise these are scared away 
and the economic systems collapse. According to Tiet­
meyer the key task of the state today is to remove any 
obstacles to this confidence. This is why state leaders 
now confer in the IMF to help the transnnationals.
Tietmeyer's claims are accepted at face value; he 
does not need arguments to support his claims. In his 
world, the investors are the only volatile element/force, 
and the states are their helpmates.
The actions by states are negative: to remove hurdles 
and obstacles for transnational corporations: to drop 
constraints to 'free' market, with the WTO (World Trade 
Organisation), MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Invest­
ment), etc., as instruments, to make capital flexible, to 
make workers replaceable, movable and controllable,
i.e. not take any positive action but only remove con­
straints to capitalism (see articles in Mander, Goldsmith 
(eds.) 1996).
On the other hand, the states are supposed to guar­
antee the human rights of all their citizens. Can they do 
this? Is respecting human rights and guaranteeing them 
compatible with giving market forces free range?
Human rights, especially economic and social rights, 
are, according to human rights lawyer Katarina Tomasev- 
ski (1996,104), to act as correctives to the free market.
The first international human rights treaty abolished 
slavery. Prohibiting slavery implied that people were not 
supposed to be treated as market commodities. ILO (The 
International Labour Organisation) has added that la­
bour should not be treated as commodity. But price-tags
4 It was and is likewise the policy of both the Bush and Clinton as well as the Thatcher and Blair governments, all based on the neo­
liberal Hayek and Friedman doctrines - see Spring 1998 for an overview in relation to education.
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are to be removed from other areas too. TomaSevski 
claims (ibid., 104) that "The purpose of international 
human rights law is ... to overrule the law of supply and 
demand and remove price-tags from people and from 
necessities for their survival."
These necessities for survival include not only basic 
food and housing (which would come under economic 
and social rights), but also basics for the sustenance of a 
dignified life, including basic civil, political and cultural 
rights. In Johan Galtung's terms, it is not only material, 
somatic needs that are necessities for survival, but also 
non-material, mental needs (see Table 3):
Tab. 3 : Types o f basic needs and basic problems.
Tab. 3 : Tipi osnovnih potreb in problemov.
TYPES OF BASIC NEEDS
vs
Impediments to their 
satisfaction
Education is part of 'well-being' and 'identity', and a 
prerequisite for ’security' and 'freedom'. Education, in­
cluding basic educational linguistic rights, is one of the 
necessities from which price-tags should be removed by 
the human rights system.
This means that it is the duty of each state, each 
government to create conditions under which people 
are able to provide these necessities for themselves. 
Many people cannot do this, some of the reasons being 
that the right to work is not a fundamental inalienable 
individual human right. Neither is the right to fair trade 
at a collective level. If people cannot provide the ne­
cessities themselves, it is the duty of governments, ac­
cording to human rights principles, to provide the ne­
cessities for those unable to do so themselves. If indi­
vidual governments are unable to do so, it is the duty of 
the international community.
If this really happened, we would not need to worry 
about the fate of the world's languages. But it does not. 
Most states are either unwilling or unable to deliver - or 
both.5 The general unwillingness, especially by Western 
countries, becomes clear when scrutinizing the protec­
tion of educational language rights in some human 
rights instruments - which are, after all, signed and rati­
fied by states (Skutnabb-Kangas, Phillipson, 1994; Skut- 
nabb-Kangas, 1998b; Skutnabb-Kangas, 1999) - and I 
will do this in a moment. The capacity of states to de­
liver is partially eroded by the "free" market, by the re­
strictions on state sovereignty in the age of post-modern­
ist globalisation.
The earlier tests of the sovereignty of a state had to 
do with to what extent the state had political control 
over the economy, the military, the culture; was self- 
sufficient and sovereign and could provide for its citi­
zens (see also Hassanpour, 1999). The post-modernist 
state has no control over the traditional markers of 
sovereignty; sovereignty has disappeared or is shaky 
beyond repair. Glocalisation has replaced globalisation. 
There is a globalisation of finance & capital; they are 
extraterritorial. Everybody can buy the same tanks, i.e. 
military control has disappeared. And American culture 
is everywhere (see articles in Mander, Goldsmith, 1996).
Preservation of local law and order (the only area 
where states are 'sovereign') represents localisation. Sta­
tes use their power to control those who might want to 
prevent the removal of the obstacles to globalisation.6 
Tietmeyer's investors are in Zygmunt Bauman's view 
(1997) interested in weak but sovereign states: states ha­
ve to be weak in order not to be able to prevent the 
globalisation which multi- and transnationals need; on 
the other hand they have to be capable of securing the 
safety of international businessmen on the streets every­
where and to control workers, i.e. to have control over 
the state apparatuses for violence for internal purposes. 
Most wars today are intra-state wars, not wars between 
states.
The often quoted fact of the top 225 multimillionaires 
with as much liquid cash as the poorest 45% of the
DIRECT
(intended)
STRUCTURAL
(built-in)
Material needs 
(SOMATIC)
SECURITY
vs
Violence
WELL-BEING
vs
Misery
Non-material needs 
(MENTAL)
FREEDOM
vs
Repression
IDENTITY
vs
Alienation
(based on Galtung, 1988, 147)
5 O ne reason not discussed here is of course that even basic human rights do not apply to all humans, and very clearly not to most of 
those w ho are speakers of the most threatened languages. W hen the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights was accepted, UN  
consisted of only 51 states, as compared to the present number of close to 200 states. But only a minority of the individuals living in 
those states were deemed "human" in the sense that the Universal Declaration should apply to them - the human beings in colonies 
and dependent territories were not "human", according to the vote in UN . In the same sense, migrants are not human today, accord­
ing to Katarina TomaSevski (1997) - they have very few human rights and certainly no binding linguistic rights.
6 Zygmunt Bauman claim s (1997) that if the globalisation of information levels out cultural differences and cultures in general, a policy 
of fragmentation implied in localisation on the other hand may favour differentation. You can have whatever cultural values but still 
get Western tanks, computers, etc. There is a lack of cohesion, illogicality, in the policy.
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population of the world together7 is just one example of 
increasing inequality, one of the consequences of struc­
tural changes in globalisation (one of the 'stress on 
people' factors in Figure 1). But instead of analysing the 
structural poverty, resulting from, among other factors, 
the structural unemployment inherent in the 'free mar­
kets', as a result of globalisation, the poor are constructed 
as being poor because of inherent deficiencies (among 
these lack of competence in dominant languages).
Now the poor are seen as structurally poor and un­
employed, hence bad consumers, and under the 'free' 
market that is a crime. Criminalisation of poverty leads 
to the poor being legitimately controlled by the state (in 
the welfare state by social workers, and increasingly the 
police) and not 'helped'. Not ethnic cleansing but eco­
nomic cleansing, townships, bantustans for the poor of 
the world. Thus the local state removes the obstacles for 
the globalising free market.
This is the answer of market forces to the post-mod­
ern problems of their own making. A human rights ori­
ented answer could be different. According to our ear­
lier analysis, one of the important tasks for states would 
be to guarantee the satisfaction of basic human needs 
for everybody. This could be done if human rights and 
economic rights came together, controlled by a demo­
cratic political process.
But in global human rights policies there is a con­
spicuous silence about economic and social (or welfare) 
rights, coupled with very vocal anti-welfare approaches 
(see examples in Pilger, 1998). In global and Western 
economic policies, human rights are hardly mentioned, 
except when legitimating economic benefits for the in­
dustrialised countries by referring to alleged (and often 
real) human rights violations in underdeveloped coun­
tries. Also, in renegotiating political, military and eco­
nomic alliances, Western countries skilfully play the 
card of alleged human rights violations.8
Tomasevski sums it all up (1996, 100):
"the ideology of the free market has exempted econ­
omy from public control (sometimes even influence) and 
thus eliminated the basis for human rights, when these 
are understood as an exercise of political rights to 
achieve economic, social and cultural rights."
Globalising access to information has enabled 
counterhegemonic forces to ensure that there is growing 
sensitivity to human rights. But at the same time there is
also a growing inability to secure them by progressive 
forces in civil society. The gap between rhetoric and 
implementation is growing, with all the growing in­
equalities. Behind this lies the collapse of institutions of 
democratic political control of trade and capital. In this 
light, it is completely predictable that states commit lin­
guistic genocide; it is part of the support to the ho­
mogenizing global market forces. In the last part of the 
paper, I will look at what happens to linguistic human 
rights in education in international and European human 
rights instruments. This strengthens the impression that 
especially Western states try to prevent the granting of 
binding linguistic human rights which could support 
diversity.
LINGUISTIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN EDUCATION IN 
INTERNATIONAL AND EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS 
INSTRUMENTS
In many of the post-WW2 (Skutnabb-Kangas, Phillip- 
son, 1994) human rights instruments, language is men­
tioned in the preambles and in general clauses, as one 
of the characteristics on the basis of which individuals 
are not to be discriminated against in their enjoyment of 
human rights and fundamental freedoms. The other 
original characteristics (from the joint Art. 2, Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights, and Art. 2.1, International 
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) are "race, col­
our, sex, religion, political or other opinion, national or 
social origin, property, birth or other status". Later in­
struments have added disability, economic status or any 
other social condition, ethnic origin, conviction, na­
tionality, age and marital status. The original and basic 
four (in the United Nations Charter, Art. 13) are "race, 
sex, language, or religion". This shows that language has 
been seen as one of the most important characteristics 
of humans in terms of their human rights.
But when we move from the lofty non-duty-inducing 
phrases in the preambles of the human rights instru­
ments, to the real business, namely the binding clauses, 
and especially to the educational clauses, something 
very strange happens. There is a change of position. All 
or most of the non-linguistic human characteristics 
(race, sex, religion, etc) are still there and get positive 
rights accorded to them: the clauses or articles about
7 In 1997 3 families had more private property that 48 countries together and 225 billionaires as much as half the world’s population.
The poorest 48 countries, so called LD C's (Lest Developed Countries), have 0.4%  of world trade. Taken together, the private assets of 
Microsoft director Bill Gates, the Walton family (owners of the supermarket chain Wal-Mart) and the Sultan of Brunei or the investor 
W arren Buffett (equally rich), are bigger than the Gross National Product of the 48 LD C s. The richest 225 individuals in the world (in 
1995, 358 were needed) had in 1997 total assets equalling those of the poorest 2.5 billion people, some 45%  of the world's popula­
tion (source: Human Development Report 1998 from U N D P - United Nations Development Program).
8 The concept 'human rights' is often used in international relations arbitrarily and selectively by 'donor' governments so as to attempt
to trigger 'democratic' elections or to sanction states that commit gross human rights abuses; in effect it is used as a political tool
rather than a rigorous concept rooted in international law (Tomasevski, 1997).
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them create obligations and contain demanding formu­
lations, where the states are firm dutyholders and are 
obliged to ('shall') act in order to ensure the specified 
rights (i.e. positive rather than negative rights). Here 
modifications, opt-out clauses and sliding-scale alterna­
tives are rare.
In binding educational clauses, however, one of two 
things can often be noted. Firstly, often language disap­
pears completely, as, for instance, in the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights (1948) where the para­
graph on education (26) does not refer to language at 
all. Similarly, the International Covenant on Economic, 
Social and Cultural Rights (adopted in 1966 and in force 
since 1976), having mentioned language on a par with 
race, colour, sex, religion, etc. in its general Article 
(2.2), does explicitly refer to 'racial, ethnic or religious 
groups' in its educational Article (13). However, it omits 
here reference to language or linguistic groups:
"... education shall enable all persons to participate 
effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tol­
erance and friendship among all nations and all racial, 
ethnic or religious groups..."
The European Convention on Human Rights and 
Fundamental Freedoms of 1950 is equally silent on not 
only language rights in education but even more general 
minority rights, says Patrick Thornberry:
"The Convention does not establish individual 
minority rights nor collective rights of minorities. Case- 
law has gradually mapped out what the Convention 
demands and permits (Thornberry, 1997, 348-349)."
Several new Declarations and Conventions to protect 
minorities and/or minority languages have been passed 
in the 1990s. But even in the new instruments strange 
things are happening in relation to language and the 
Articles about language rights in education. Even in new 
instruments language has been omitted. This is interest­
ing in relation to racism definitions. It is very clear that 
crude biologically argued racism is no longer accepted 
as official ideology in any state - in its stead have come 
culturally/ethnically argued racism (ethnicism) and lin­
guistically argued racism, linguicism.9 This should of 
course also be reflected in recent action-oriented defini­
tions of racism. When the UN Centre for Human Rights 
in Geneve wrote a Model National Legislation for the 
Guidance of Governments in the Enactment of Further 
Legislation against Racial Discrimination for the UN 
Year Against Racism (1996), 'race, colour, descent, na­
tionality or ethnic origin' were mentioned in the new 
definition of racism used, but there was no mention of 
language.
If language-related rights are included and specified,
the Article dealing with these rights, in contrast to the 
demanding formulations and the few opt-outs and alter­
natives in the articles dealing with other characteristics, 
is typically so weak and unsatisfactory that it is virtually 
meaningless. All or many of the other human character­
istics are still there and get proper treatment and de­
tailed, positive rights. The clauses about them create 
obligations and contain demanding formulations, where 
the states are firm dutyholders and 'shall' do something 
positive in order to ensure the rights; there are few 
modifications, few opt-out clauses and few alternatives 
on a gliding scale. Many of the other characteristics get 
their own specific conventions (e.g. conventions to pre­
vent racism or sexism, or to guarantee freedom of relig­
ion). But not so for language, especially in education.
For example, in the UN Declaration on the Rights of 
Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and 
Linguistic Minorities, adopted by the General Assembly 
in December 1992, most of the Articles use the obligat­
ing formulation 'shall' and have few let-out modifica­
tions or alternatives - except where linguistic rights in 
education are concerned. Compare, for example, the 
unconditional formulation in Article 1 with the educa­
tion Article 4.3:
"1.1. States shall protect the existence and the na­
tional or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity 
of minorities within their respective territories, and shall 
encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity.
1.2. States shall adopt appropriate legislative and 
other measures to achieve those ends.
4.3. States should take appropriate measures so that, 
wherever possible, persons belonging to minorities have 
adequate opportunities to learn their mother tongue or 
to have instruction in their mother tongue." (emphases 
added, 'obligating' in italics, 'opt-outs' in bold).
Clearly the formulation in Art. 4.3 raises many ques­
tions. What constitutes 'appropriate measures', or 'ade­
quate opportunities', and who is to decide what is 'pos­
sible'? Does 'instruction in their mother tongue' mean 
through the medium of the mother tongue or does it 
only mean instruction in the mother tongue as a subject?
While the Charter demonstrates the unquestionably 
real problems of writing binding formulations which are 
sensitive to local conditions, just as in the UN Declara­
tion above, its opt-outs and alternatives permit a reluc­
tant state to meet the requirements in a minimalist way, 
which it can legitimate by claiming that a provision was 
not 'possible' or 'appropriate', or that numbers were not 
'sufficient' or did not 'justify' a provision, or that it 
'allowed' the minority to organise teaching of their lan­
guage as a subject, at their own cost.
9 Linguicism : 'ideologies, structures and practises w hich are used to legitimate, effectuate, regulate and reproduce an unequal division 
of power and resources (both material and immaterial) between groups w hich are defined on the basis of language' (Skutnabb-Kan- 
gas, 1988, 13).
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The Council of Europe Framework Convention for 
the Protection of National Minorities was adopted by 
the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 
10 November 1994. We again find that the Article cov­
ering medium of education is so heavily qualified that 
the minority is completely at the mercy of the state:
"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 instruc­
tion in this language" (emphases added).
The Framework Convention has been critisized by 
both politicians and even international lawyers who are 
normally very careful in their comments, like Patrick 
Thornberry, Professor of Law at Keele University. His 
final general assessment of the provisions, after a careful 
comment on details, is:
"In case any of this [provisions in the Convention] 
should threaten the delicate sensibilities of States, the 
Explanatory Report makes it clear that they are under no 
obligation to conclude 'agreements', and that the para­
graph does not imply any official recognition of the lo­
cal names. Despite the presumed good intentions, the 
provision represents a low point in drafting a minority 
right; there is just enough substance in the formulation 
to prevent it becoming completely vacuous" (Thorn­
berry, 1997, 356-357).
A still more recent attempt to promote language 
rights, a draft Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, 
accepted in Barcelona in June 1996 and handed over to 
UNESCO, also suffers from similar shortcomings even if 
it for several beneficiaries (language communities and, 
to some extent, language groups) represents great pro­
gress in relation to the other instruments described. Still, 
indirectly its education section forces all others except 
those defined as members of language communities 
(which roughly correspond to national territorially based 
minorities) to assimilate. For all others, only education 
in the language of the territory is a positive right, i.e. not 
education in their own language. There is no mention of 
bilingual or multilingual territories in the Declaration. 
Every territory seems to have only one "language spe­
cific to the territory", i.e. territories are seen as monolin­
gual. This means that for those who speak a language 
other than the language of the territory, education in 
their own language is not a positive right. In addition, 
the Declaration grants members of language communi­
ties the right to "the most extensive possible command" 
of any foreign language in the world, whereas the rights 
granted to "everyone" include only the right to "oral and 
written knowledge" of one's own language. This is clear 
in a comparison of the formulations at the end of Article 
26 on language communities with Article 29 which
spells out the (negative) right of "everyone":
"All language communities are entitled to an educa­
tion which will enable their members to acquire a full 
command of their own language, including the different 
abilities relating to all the usual spheres of use, as well 
as the most extensive possible command of any other 
language they may wish to know" (Art. 26 on rights of 
language communities).
"1. Everyone is entitled to receive an education in the 
language specific to the territory where s/he resides.
2. This right does not exclude the right to acquire 
oral and written knowledge of any language which may 
be of use to him/her as an instrument of communication 
with other language communities. (Art. 29 on rights of 
"everyone", my emphases).
Besides, Art. 29.2 is formulated so as to suggest that 
"everyone's" own language can be learned only if it is a 
useful instrument when communicating with other lan­
guage communities. This means that it could in princi­
ple be excluded if it is not known by any entity defined 
as a language community, or if it is not used as a lingua 
franca between people where some represent language 
communities. If it is 'only' known and/or used by lan­
guage groups or by individuals representing "everybody" 
it can be excluded from any provision in Article 26. 
81% of all the world's languages are endemic, accord­
ing to Harmon (1995).
It is likely that the lack of rights in the education 
section will force all those not defined as members of 
language communities to assimilate. This interpretation 
of indirect assimilation through education is strength­
ened when looking at the reservations in Articles which 
otherwise might grant "everyone" more language rights. 
According to Art. 23.4, ... "everyone has the right to 
learn any language". "Any language"- could also be in­
terpreted as the mother tongue of those who otherwise 
are not granted positive mother tongue learning rights - 
except that this right prevails only "within the context of 
the foregoing principles" (Art. 23.4) which support only 
the languages and self-expression of language commu­
nities, i.e. not the languages of "groups" or "everyone":
"1. Education must help to foster the capacity for lin­
guistic and cultural self-expression of the language 
community of the territory where it is provided.
2. Education must help to maintain and develop the 
language spoken by the language community of the 
territory where it is provided.
3. Education must always be at the service of lin­
guistic and cultural diversity and of harmonious rela­
tions between different language communities through­
out the world.
4. Within the context of the foregoing principles, 
everyone has the right to learn any language." (Article 
23, my emphases).
The Declaration thus clearly gives language com­
munities very extensive rights but leaves "everyone" with
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very few rights. This makes the Declaration vulnerable in 
several respects. There are many states which claim that 
they do not have minority language communities, or 
which do not want to give these communities any rights. 
Since self-determination is not an unconditional right in 
international law, neither internally (autonomy of some 
kind) nor externally (secession, independence), a Decla­
ration which gives most of the rights to linguistic com­
munities, without firm dutyholders, makes these commu­
nities completely dependent on the acceptance of their 
existence by states, an acceptance that many states are 
not willing to grant. This makes individual rights 
enormously important in the Declaration. But these 
individual rights are the weakest part of the Declaration.
The draft Universal Declaration does not give any 
positive educational language rights to all individuals, 
regardless of which category they belong to - and this is 
exactly what individual human rights are supposed to 
do. If something is to be seen as an individual human 
right, it means, per definition, a right which every indi­
vidual in the world has, simply because that individual 
is a human being. It means an unconditional, fundamen­
tal right that no state is allowed to take away.
In addition, the draft Declaration seems to be in 
many ways completely unrealistic - few if any states in 
the world would be willing to accept it in its present 
form. Terralingua10 is a new international organisation 
supporting linguistic diversity and investigating the rela­
tionships between linguistic diversity and biodiversity. 
Dr. Luisa Maffi, President of Terralingua, inquired about 
the future of the Draft Declaration in August 1998 when 
she visited Unesco's Division of Languages (newly es­
tablished within the Education Sector). The director 
Joseph Poth, told her that there will in fact 'be no fol­
low-up on the Draft Declaration1, but the Division 
'anticipates that the elaboration of new international 
standards for the protection of linguistic rights will be 
part of their activities' (Maffi, 1998).
The fate of the UN Draft Universal Declaration on 
Rights of Indigenous Peoples is also unsure and many 
changes are to be expected, according to the chair of 
the Working Group which prepared it, Professor Erica 
Irene Daes (1995). Despite the careful negotiations over 
a decade, several countries, most importantly the United 
States, are probably going to demand substantial 
changes which undermine the progress achieved in the 
Declaration (Morris, 1995).
The conclusion is that we are still to see the right to 
education through the medium of the mother tongue 
become a human right. We are still living with basic 
language wrongs in human rights law, especially in 
education policy. Denial of linguistic human rights, lin­
guistic and cultural genocide and forced assimilation 
through education are still characteristic of many states, 
notably in Europe and Neo-Europes.
There are some positive recent developments, 
though, and I shall only mention the three which I see as 
most promising. The reinterpretation by the UN Human 
Rights Committee in a General Comment of 6 April 
1994 (UN Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.5, 1994) of Arti­
cle 27 of the UN International Covenant on Civil and 
Political Rights (which still grants the best binding pro­
tection to languages) is one of the positive develop­
ments. Another one is the NGO-initiated People's Com­
munication Charter11 (Hamelink, 1994, 1995; the Char­
ter's Web-page). The third positive development is most 
directly related to education, The Hague Recommen­
dations Regarding the Education Rights of National 
Minorities & Explanatory Note (1996), from the OSCE 
(Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 
with 55 member states) High Commissioner on National 
Minorities.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Using the metaphor of the dominant languages 
themselves as killer languages as I do about the top lan­
guages may be vivid. However, it is the market forces 
behind the languages, behind the relative validation or 
invalidation of languages that are important to analyse. 
What I loosely call 'the "free" market response' is cen­
tralisation, homogenisation, monocultural efficiency; 
and the consequences of the 'free market' for linguistic 
diversity are disasterous. Another response could be 
through diversity, including implementing linguistic 
human rights. The message from both sociologists like 
Zygmunt Bauman (see also 1998a, 1998b) and human 
rights lawyers like Katarina Tomasevski is that unless 
there is a redistribution of resources for implementing 
human rights, nothing is going to happen. It is no use 
spreading knowledge of human rights unless the re­
sources for implementation follow, and that can only 
happen through a radical redistribution of the world's 
material resources.
10 Terralingua is a nonprofit international organisation devoted to preserving the world's linguistic diversity and to investigating links be­
tween biological and cultural diversity. Web-site: http://cougar.ucdavis.edu/nas/terralin/home.html. E-mails: Luisa Maffi, President: 
maffi@ nvu.edu: David Harmon, Secretary & Treasurer: gws@mail.portup.com: Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Vice-President: tovesk 
@.babel.ruc.dk.
11 The Charter, including the history of its origin, is available at the Web-site http://www.waag.org/pcc. It can also be signed there. D is­
cussions, papers, etc., in relation to the Charter can be found at http://commposite.uauam.ca/videaz/docs/cehaen.html and 
http://commposite.uquam.ca/videaz/wgl/. The address to an e-mail discussion list is pccl@ dds.nl: the person responsible is Reinde R. 
Rustema rrr@dds.nl.
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Language shift can be 'voluntary1 at an individual 
level: a result of more benefits accruing to the individual 
who agrees to shift than to someone who maintains her 
mother tongue. But in most cases of language shift it 
seems that either sticks, punishment, or carrots, eco­
nomic or other benefits, have been at work - or, increas­
ingly, ideological persuasion, hegemonic mind-master­
ing, meaning linguicist agents. Likewise, the choice of 
which languages are granted support, and of what kind, 
in the education system as mother tongues and foreign 
or second languages often follows linguicist 'free' mar­
ket principles, with more benefits accruing to those who 
support the killer languages as both media of education 
and as first foreign languages in education.
If people are forced to shift their languages in order 
to gain economic benefits of the kind which in fact are 
bare necessities for basic survival, this is a violation of 
not only their economic human rights but also their lin­
guistic human rights.
Violations of linguistic human rights, especially in 
education, may lead and have led to both ethnically 
articulated conflict and to reduction of linguistic and 
cultural diversity on our planet. But granting human 
rights on paper, even linguistic human rights, even in 
education, something that is hardly done today, does 
not help much. For human rights to be implemented, a 
radical redistribution of the world's material resources is 
necessary. With a 'free' market this is not likely to hap­
pen. Secondly, for this to happen, civil society needs to 
take back the control of economy which has been given 
away to the transnational companies and the financial 
giants in the globalisation process. Thus states are dou­
ble agents, in a very difficult situation. What we need to 
do is to support those forces in civil society which force 
states to stop the unholy alliances they have with the 
'free' market forces, and start responding through di­
versity and localisation.
The losers, if this does not happen, are not only the 
80 percent of the world's population at present consum­
ing only 20 percent of the resources. The losers are hu­
manity and the planet. I will quote Edward Goldsmith 
(1996, 91), and want to remind the readers that 
'environment' means biological, linguistic and cultural 
environment. In his words, 'there is no evidence that 
trade or economic development are of any great value 
to humanity ... The environment, on the other hand, is 
our greatest wealth, and to kill it, as the TNCs
[transnational companies] are methodically doing, is an 
act of unparalleled criminality.' The only hope today 
seems to be that the TNC leaders might realise that it is 
not in the interest of their grandchildren either because 
'there can be no trade and no economic development 
on a dead planet' (Goldsmith, 1996, 91).
In the age of industrialisation and modernism, those 
who had material and financial resources, capital, did 
well. In the age of information, those who are deposito­
ries for the knowledge capital needed for creating, stor­
ing and exchanging information, those with linguistic 
and cultural capital, will do well. The more linguistic 
and cultural diversity, the more knowledge capital. If the 
elites, in the name of supposed efficiency, homogenise 
the world, they are also killing this mental capital. Un­
less we, instead of globalising financial capital, start 
truly globalising language rights, including a right to a 
diverse environment, there is no future.
Learning dominant big languages additively, includ­
ing English for everyone, is OK. Subtractive dominant 
language learning (where for instance English is learned 
at the cost of the mother tongues, not in addition to 
them) kills other languages.
Summing up, market economy, and the creation of 
larger and more centralized economic, administrative 
and political units has, despite a rhetoric of democracy 
and local participation, been the order of the day, in the 
'first' and 'third' worlds. It also seems to be re-emerging 
in the former 'second' world. The socio-economic, 
techno-military and political, structural changes inevi­
tably connected with the 'modernization' process cause 
stress on both nature and on people, their socio-eco­
nomic conditions of life, and their languages and cul­
tures (Figure 1). These processes have resulted in an ac­
celerated environmental degradation (= nature under 
stress), and growing gaps between the Haves and the 
Have-nots (or Never-to-haves as many of our Indian 
colleagues say) and in linguistic and cultural genocide 
(= people under stress). Education systems, as currently 
run, contribute to committing this linguistic and cultural 
genocide.
An important priority for both research and action 
would be to define policies for preservation and devel­
opment of environmental, linguistic and cultural, eco­
nomic and political diversity.12 This would also include 
studying the role of human rights in the different re­
sponses.
12 There are caveats, though. There are no longer any 'bad' or 'good' solutions, only relatively better or worse solutions. Both the bipo­
lar possibilities (either universality (universal ideas, ideologies, solutions) or tolerance of diversity and pluralism) have certain benefits 
and certain dangers, according to Bauman (1997). Believing in 'universal thruths' (like 'communism' or 'capitalism' or 'free market') 
can in the worst case lead (and has led) to genocides. 'Tolerance' can also lead to tolerating genocide without doing anything (e.g. 
Bosnia, Nigeria). 'Tolerance' can also be expressed in demands for autonomy of choice, in an individual neo-liberal way, in con­
sumer societies, where any kind of restrictions or limits are seen as negative. This might also inslude the prevention of any kind of 
positive intervention to achieve the 'regulated context' which Grin (1999) sees as necessary for harnessing market forces for pres­
ervation of at least some linguistic diversity.
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Alternative responses to changes 
BACKGROUND REASONS
Socio-economic, techno-military and political structural changes
RESULTS in
Environmental degradation Linguistic and cultural genocide Growing gaps between haves and 
have-nots
CREATES STRESS UPON
NATURE P E O P L E
Languages and cultures Socio-economic conditions of life
THESE RESPOND, ALTERNATIVELY,
THROUGH MARKETS & MONOCULTURAL 
EFFICIENCY:
Economic efficiency first priority; larger and more 
centralized economic and political units; OR______
THROUGH DIVERSITY:
Sustainability through diversity first priority: flexible, 
resilient and democratic economic and political units
WHICH RESULTS, ALTERNATIVELY, in
biodiversity linguistic and 
cultural diversity
living conditions biodiversity linguistic and 
cultural diversity
living conditions
disappears disappears;
homogenization
deteriorate;
polarization
maintenance maintenance,
development
sustainable;
democratization
Fig. 1: Alternative responses to socio-economic, techno-military and political structural changes. '3 
SI. 1: Alternativni odzivi na socialno-ekonomske, tehnično-vojaške in politične strukturne spremembe.
This is the context in which I think we need to see the 
spread of certain languages at the cost of others. The 
Japanese scholar Yukio Tsuda (1994) analyses the spread 
of English in terms of a 'diffusion of English' paradigm 
where he sees several other factors related to this diffu­
sion. As an alternative he proposes an 'ecology of lang­
uages' paradigm which includes minimally bilingualism 
but hopefully multilingualism for all. Robert Phillison 
and I have worked further on Tsuda's suggestions (see 
the discussion in Phillipson, Skutnabb-Kangas, 1996).
Table 4 presents both paradigms in my latest version.
Most English as a Second Language teaching today, 
internally and globally, is a reflection of the Diffusion of 
English Paradigm. For linguistic and cultural diversity to 
be maintained, for the planet to have a future, an Ecol­
ogy of Languages Paradigm (which also respects lin­
guistic human rights) is a necessary (but not sufficient) 
prerequisite.
We have the knowledge needed to choose intelli­
gently. Information technology could be used for 
spreading this knowledge, instead of mass media spurt­
ing out the mental nerve gas of consumerism, com­
modification and Macdonaldization.
Tab. 4: Diffusion o f English and Ecology o f languages 
paradigms.
Tab. 4 : Razpršitev angleškega jezika in ekologija jez i­
kovnih paradigem.
The diffusion of English paradigm_______________________
1. monolingualism and linguistic genocide_____________
2. promotion of subtractive learning of dominant lang- 
uages____________________________________________________
3. linguistic, cultural and media imperialism___________
4. Americanisation and homogenisation of world 
culture__________________________________________________
5. ideological globalisation and internationalisation
6. capitalism, hiérarchisation____________________________
7. rationalisation based on science and technology
8. modernisation and economic efficiency_____________
9. transnationalisation____________________________________
10. growing polarisation and gaps between haves and 
never-to-haves___________________________________
Ecology of languages paradigm__________________________
1. multilingualism, and linguistic diversity______________
2. promotion of additive foreign/second language lear- 
ning_____________________________________________________
3. equality in communication____________________________
4. maintenance and exchange of cultures_______________
5. ideological localisation and exchange_______________
6. economic démocratisation____________________________
7. human rights perspective, holistic integrative values
8. sustainability through promotion of diversity_________
9. protection of local production and national sov- 
ereignties_______________________________________________
10. redistribution of the world's material resources
13 This figure is partially inspired by the flow chart in Jussila, Segerstahl, 1988, 18.
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At present, though, while we can hope that some of 
the positive developments might have some effect, 
overall there is not much cause for optimism. My con­
clusion is that we still have to work for education 
through the medium of the mother tongue to be recog­
nized by states as a human right. And if this right is not 
granted, and implemented, it seems likely that the pre­
sent pessimistic prognoses of over 90% of the world's 
oral languages not being around anymore in the year 
2100, are too optimistic.
JEZIKOVNA IN BIOLOŠKA DIVERZITETA, 'PROSTI TRG' IN B O D O Č N O ST ZEMLJE - 
ALI IMAJO ČLO V EKO V E JEZIKOVNE PRAVICE NA PO DROČJU IZOBRAŽEVANJA SPLOH  
KAJ M OČI?
Tove SKUTNABB-KANGAS
Roskilde Universitetscenter, DK-4000 Roskilde, Postboks 260
POVZETEK
Danes jeziki izginjajo hitreje kot kdaj koli prej v zgodovini človeštva. Biološka raznovrstnost na eni strani ter 
jezikovna in kulturna raznovrstnost na drugi so vzajemne, kar potrjujejo številni dokazi', ki pričajo o morebitnem 
vzročnem razmerju, koevoluciji človek - okolje. Zmagoslavna razglasitev "svobodnega" tržnega sistema kot nujnega 
in pozitivnega spremljevalca globalizacije uničuje jezike hitreje kot kdaj koli prej. Homogenizacija in monokulturna 
učinkovitost pritiskata na naravo in ljudi ter prispevata k uničevanju raznolikosti. Zavest, šole in mediji so glavni 
neposredni povzročitelji jezikovnega genocida v izobraževanju.
Mednarodni zakon o človeških pravicah naj bi tako deloval kot korektor v svobodni trgovini, prevladal nad 
zakonom ponudbe in povpraševanja in odstranil nalepke s cenami z  ljudi in osnovnih potreb za njihovo preživetje. 
Te ne vključujejo samo osnovnih živil in bivališča, temveč tudi osnovne civilne, politične in kulturne pravice. 
Jezikovne človekove pravice, ki so, posebno v izobraževanju, nujen predpogoj za ohranitev jezikovne razno­
vrstnosti, so namreč sedaj popolnoma nezadostne za zaščito in ohranitev jezikovne raznolikosti, kljub nekaterim 
pozitivnim dogajanjem v zadnjem času.
Ključne besede: jezikovna različnost, človekova jezikovna pravica, ekonomska globalizacija, redistribucija surovin,
civilna družba, jezikovni genocid, lingvicizem
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