At first sight linguistic genocide might sound like a non-issue. But when taking a closer look we became convinced that this is something worthwhile to dedicate our time to – maybe particularly because it is such a neglected topic. Linguistic genocide has been a concern for quite a while now as minorities get discriminated on the basis of their language and they even get repressed. According to National Geographic’s Enduring Voices project every 14 days a language dies and until 2100 half of the existing 7000 languages will be extinct.
Fortunately the United Nations published the UN International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (E793, 1948) which has five definitions of genocide and two of them are frequently cited to judge ills in the treatment of minorities:
Article II (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group;
Article II (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
Clearly, one needs to discriminate language death from linguistic genocide. In the former case a person or group decides to just switch to another language for communication voluntarily (which deem completely okay and part of the natural life cycle of a language) while in the latter case some majority group decides to repress a minority group on the basis of their language. This is not acceptable and falls under the upper definition of genocide.
One case of linguistic genocide is the case of the Uyghurs. East Turkestan, home of many Uyghur speakers, was occupied by China in 1949. Following this Uyghur language was banned in kindergartens and primary schools. Furthermore high potential Uyghur kids were promoted to schools in the Han China to live and learn among Han Chinese. Furthermore the budget allocated to either Han Chinese schools in East Turkestan or Uyghur schools in East Turkestan has been heavily favored towards those schools teaching and Han Chinese during the past 50 years. In a next step only some years ago Uyghur teachers in East Turkestan were tested with respect to their Han Chinese language capabilities. Those considered unqualified were replaced by Han Chinese teachers not speaking any Uyghur. (Skutnabb-Kangas/ Dunbar: Indigenous Children’s Education as Linguistic Genocide and a Crime Against Humanity? A Global View, Journal of Indigenous Peoples Rights No. 1/2010). To get some further impressions of modern cases of linguistic genocide take a look at this list on Listverse.
We believe that culture crystallizes in language and protecting minorities means protecting their languages. Telling the stories of these minorities and their languages puts them back on the cultural landscape. Our contribution to fight lingustic genocide will therefore be to once in a while publish examples of languages being banned from official use or being repressed in more elaborate forms.
What could you do? While travelling closely watch minority cultures as well as languages and treat them respectfully. Follow policy-making and culture in your own country to see whether and how minority languages are getting repressed. And if you shared these stories with us to give us a better idea of linguistic genocide worldwide we will be happy to collect and spread them.