scholarly journals Les droits linguistiques canadiens en évolution

2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-238
Author(s):  
D’Iberville Fortier

The Commissioner of Official Languages presents the evolution of linguistic rights from the time of Confederation up to the period of the Quiet Revolution in Québec. This survey dwells upon guarantees granted to linguistic minorities in Canada. At the Federal level of government, the author describes the consequences of the Royal Commission of Enquiry on Bilingualism and Biculturalism : The Official Languages Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At the provincial level of government, he draws up an overall account of the factual integration of these laws. His observations lead him to conclude that Canada will never be a homogeneous country with regard to linguistic rights and that minority aid systems are deficient. As a solution, the author underscores the timeliness of Federal-provincial arrangements with a view to creating specific development projects for official language minorities in accordance with local needs, but founded upon a common basis.

1991 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 495-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Pool

Polities and organizations use and require particular languages for official business. The choice of official languages is a vexing issue. Theorists, convinced that a fair language policy cannot be efficient, have despaired of an elegant solution. To investigate this apparent dilemma, I mathematically model the problem of choosing an efficient and fair language policy for a plurilingual polity. The policy designates official languages and taxes the language groups to pay for translation among the official languages. Contrary to prevailing wisdom, this model implies that a fair language policy can be efficient. But what if language groups rationally misrepresent the costs of using a nonnative official language? Even then, the policy maker can discover a fair language policy and, under some conditions, can use a cost-revelation procedure that discovers a fair and efficient language policy. The results challenge the claim that efficiency and practicality excuse the inferior treatment of language minorities.


2013 ◽  
pp. 144-170
Author(s):  
Hubert Tote Alimezelli ◽  
Anne Leis ◽  
Chandima Karunanayake ◽  
Wilfrid Denis

Current trends show that governments and health institutions in Canada and other developed nations are responding inadequately to the growing need for health services of the increasingly aging population. The Analysis of Statistics Canada’s 2006 post-census Survey on the Vitality of Official Language Minorities show that in addition to age and other socio-demographic determinants, linguistic barriers affect the self-rated health of seniors of official languages living in a minority situation. This study suggests among other things a greater understanding of Official language minorities’ contextual realities, the improvement of both the linguistic environment and services in the minority language.


2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 69-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henri Brun ◽  
Guy Tremblay

This article is a summary of the law governing official languages in Canada. The paper also concentrates on present controversial issues raised by judicial pronouncements on the Official Languages Act and on section 133 of the B.N.A  Act. The first section studies the « constitutional » aspect of the question of official languages in Canada, as to whether the relevant provisions are considered to be entrenched or not. Special emphasis is placed on the scope and effect of section 133 as interpreted so far. Federal and provincial legislative powers with respect to languages are then discussed, as well as the inapplicability of section 93 of the B.N.A. Act. Finally, the main constitutional proposals relating to linguistic rights are outlined. The next two sections deal with federal and provincial legislation and their judicial application. At the federal level, the Official Languages Act and its apparent weaknesses attract particular attention. At the provincial level, a survey is taken of Quebec's successive Acts respecting languages, and « Bill 101 » is especially considered in relation to the Charter of human rights and freedoms. The conclusion is that the unsatisfactory state of the law of official languages in Canada may well drag on if general agreement is not reached on a renewed federation.


2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-257
Author(s):  
Matthew Hayday

Abstract Following the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, the Canadian and provincial governments undertook a wide array of measures to promote Canada's two official languages through education programs. Over the fifteen years following the passage of the Official Languages Act, minority and second official-language education programs developed in a markedly different fashion in the two provinces with the largest Acadian communities: New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. A combination of factors, including the demographic weight of the Acadian communities, the strategies of Acadian lobby groups, the attitudes of the majority and minority communities, and the ideologies of key politicians and civil servants must all be taken into account to explain the uneven development of official language education programs in these two “Acadian provinces”.


English Today ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-25
Author(s):  
Peter Wuteh Vakunta

The choice of an official language in a linguistically pluralistic society often poses thorny problems, not least of which is that concerning perceived threats to the linguistic rights of minority language communities. This article discusses the importance of Cameroonian pidgin English (CPE) in relation to the two imperial languages inherited from colonial masters – English and French. I will contend that for the purpose of socio-political integration and national unity in Cameroon, it is incumbent upon policy-makers and language planners to choose pidgin English as one of the official languages in the country. CPE is a national lingua franca spoken by the rich and poor, men and women, educated and uneducated, young and old. Being one of the most widely spoken languages in the country, having met the communicative needs of Cameroonians for more than 500 years, and being a language that carries the identity and ecology of Cameroon, pidgin English has the potential to be promoted to the status of an official language and made to serve as a compromise medium for socio-political integration in an ethnically pluralistic nation such as Cameroon.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (100) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Vicenta Tasa Fuster

Resumen:Este trabajo pretende dar una visión general del reconocimiento de la diversidad lingüística española que se deriva de la Constitución. Nos referimos exclusivamente a las lenguas autóctonas históricamente habladas en España; teniendo en cuenta, además, que una misma lengua puede recibir diversas denominaciones populares y oficiales.Partiendo de estas premisas, el trabajo estudia el reconocimiento que hace la Constitución Española de la diversidad lingüística en España en su artículo 3. Se subraya en el estudio que, en dicho artículo de la Constitución se establece que el castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado y que todos los españoles tienen el deber de conocerla y el derecho a usarla (art. 3.1), que las otras lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas comunidades autónomas, en función de la regulación que hagan sus estatutos (art. 3.2) y que España considera que la riqueza de las diferentes modalidades lingüísticas esun patrimonio cultural que deberá tener un respeto y una protección especiales (art. 3.3).El contenido de la Constitución, la jurisprudencia constitucional de las últimas cuatro décadas y los estatutos de autonomía y legislación lingüística autonómica, han asentado un reconocimiento de la diversidad lingüística española y de los derechos lingüísticos concretos de los hablantes de las distintas lenguas españolas fundamentado en el principio de jerarquía lingüística y no en los de seguridad lingüística e igualdad de derechos lingüísticos. El principio de jerarquía lingüística presupone considerar que existen unas lenguas que deben tener un reconocimiento legal y oficial superior a otras. Y, lo que es lo mismo, que los derechos lingüísticos de sus hablantes no tienen el mismo grado de reconocimiento. Llegándose a dar el caso que, en España, una misma lengua pueda llegar a tener diferentes niveles de reconocimiento legal-oficial y un número aún mayor de políticas lingüísticas que traten de convertir en una realidad substantiva todos o una parte de los derechos lingüísticos reconocidos formalmente a los hablantes de una lengua diferente del castellano en una comunidad autónoma.Así las cosas, se constata que legalmente una lengua (castellano) tiene una situación de preeminencia legal-oficial, seis lenguas españolas (catalán, gallego, vasco, occitano, aragonés y asturleonés) tienen algún tipo de reconocimiento oficial en parte del territorio en el que son habladas de manera autóctona, una lengua tiene reconocimiento político (tamazight), otra tiene un reconocimiento administrativo menor en Cataluña (caló), y tres lenguas autóctonas no tienen el más mínimo reconocimiento legal, político o administrativo (árabe, haquetia yportugués). El trabajo estudia detalladamente y de manera global la estructuración de la jerarquía lingüística en la legislación española derivadade la Constitución y concluye con una descripción de los seis niveles de jerarquía lingüística y de derechos lingüísticos que existen en España. Se defiende, finalmente, un cambio sistema lingüístico legalconstitucional que respete los principios de seguridad lingüística y el principio de igualdad de derechos lingüísticos de todos los ciudadanos españoles. Summary:1. Introduction. The Constitution and the Spanish languages. 2.Language in the statutes of monolingual communities. 3. Linguisticdiversity in multilingual communities with a single official language.4. Communities with co-officiality. 5. Final considerations: a hierarchicalrecognition. 6. Bibliography cited. Abstract:This paper is an overview of the recognition of the Spanish linguistic diversity derived from the Constitution. We refer exclusively to the native languages historically spoken in Spain; about that is important to know that the same language can receive diverse popular and official denominations.With these premises, the work studies the recognition in the article 3 of the Spanish Constitution of the linguistic diversity in Spain. It is emphasized in the study that this article establishes that the Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State and that all Spaniards have the duty to know it and the right to use it (article 3.1), that the other Spanish languages would be official in the respective autonomous communities, depending on the regulation made by their statutes of autonomy (article 3.2 ), and that Spain considers the richness of the different linguistic modalities a cultural heritage that must have special respect and protection (article 3.3).The content of the Constitution, the constitutional jurisprudence of the last four decades and the statutes of autonomy and autonomous linguistic legislation, have established a recognition of the Spanish linguistic diversity and of the specific linguistic rights of the speakers of the different Spanish languages based on the principle of linguistic hierarchy and not in those of linguistic security and equality of linguistic rights. The principle of linguistic hierarchy considers that there are some languages that have to have a legal and official recognitionsuperior to others. And, what is the same, that the linguistic rights of its speakers do not have the same degree of recognition. In Spain, the same language may have different levels of legal-official recognition and a lot of linguistic policies in the autonomous communities that try to be reality all or part of the linguistic rights formally recognized to speakers of a language other than Castilian. So it is verified that legally a language (Castilian) has a situation oflegal-official preeminence, six Spanish languages (Catalan, Galician, Basque, Occitan, Aragonese and Asturian) have some type of official recognition in part of the territory where are spoken, one language has political recognition (Tamazight), another has a lower administrative recognition in Catalonia (Caló), and three indigenous languages do not have the least legal, political or administrative recognition (Arabic, Hachetia and Portuguese).The paper studies in detail the structure of the linguistic hierarchy in Spanish legislation derived from the Constitution and concludes with a description of the six levels of linguistic hierarchy and of linguistic rights that exist in Spain. Finally, it defends a legal-constitutional linguistic system that respects the principles of linguistic security and of equality of linguistic rights of all Spanish citizens.


1985 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-133
Author(s):  
Akiko Ŭusink-Nagata

Portuguese in Unesco? Recommendation 73 of the World Conference on Cultural Policies (Mexico City, 1982) dealt with Portuguese and other languages, calling on the director-general of Unesco to promote study of the possible use of Portuguese as a working language in the organization. Six reasons were given, including the fact that Portuguese is now the official language of seven member-states, that it is used also in various forms in other parts of the world, that it is a language that bridges cultural and racial diversity, and that it is already an official language of the Organization of American States. At the Unesco General Conference in 1983, representatives of three Portuguese-speaking countries addressed the session in Portuguese, and the representative of Portugal specifically called for the introduction of Portuguese as a working language. Currently there are three categories of languages at Unesco: the official languages of the General Conference, eight in number; the working languages of the General Conference and the Executive Board, of which there are six; and the working languages of the offices (English and French are those of headquarters). A recent Unesco document dealing with the introduction of Portuguese and other working languages calculates the cost of introducing a new working language at between $4,421,000 and $6,521,100 per biennium for limited use (i.e., translation of certain documents and provision of interpretation in certain meetings) and between $13,889,500 and $18,520,600 for use on a par with the other working languages. While the Joint Inspection Unit of the United Nations has warned against the costs involved in introducing further languages into the UN system, the director-general has tended to favor a somewhat more egalitarian approach to the problem, emphasizing the necessity to weigh such considerations as cultural values against the purely utilitarian question of cost.


English Today ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Fandrych

ABSTRACTAn account of the need for appropriate language skills in a developing multilingual context.Language issues in Southern Africa have always been marked by political struggle. In South Africa, these were sometimes violent, as with, for example, the 1976 Soweto uprisings, in which protests over the medium of education were prominent. One of the priorities of the first democratically elected government of 1994 was to democratise the situation by making eleven languages official, in contrast to the two prior to that, namely Afrikaans and English. In other Southern African countries, language issues have also been characterised by debates and struggles. A prime example is the decision by the Namibian government to make English the official language of the country, even though English had never even been a colonial language in Namibia. Another example is Lesotho, a former British protectorate, with two official languages, English and Sesotho. In the last two decades, there have been numerous debates about the status of English as a subject necessary for a pass in schools and as a prerequisite for admission to university. Kramsch's observation that ‘[l]inguistic wars are always also political and cultural wars’ captures the situation well. Language issues are still on many speakers' minds and influence their sense of self and identity. As Baugh observes, ‘[i]n societies like the United States and South Africa, where race and language development have strongly been influenced by racial strife, many students do not aspire to “talk like Whites”’.


Via Latgalica ◽  
2008 ◽  
pp. 144
Author(s):  
Antra Kļavinska

The research is based on the processed questionnaire data gathered during the ethnolinguistic expedition to Indra municipality in the rural part of the region of Kraslava in June, 2007 (120 respondents). The paper analyzes the answers of the respondents regarding the ethnic self-identification of the people, their knowledge of languages, the dominance of languages,, and their functions in the micro and macro environments of Indra municipality. The most important conclusions are: There is a noticeable difference between the official statistical data and the notions of ethnic belonging of the respondents: the official statistics state that the dominant ethnic group in Indra municipality are Belorussians; however, the major part of respondents consider themselves to be Russians. The Russian language dominates in verbal and written communication in both the micro and the macro environment. Many respondents admit that they speak „their own” language in the municipality - Russian with lexical, morphological and phonetical elements of Belorussian and Polish. The role of the Latgalian language in the rural municipality is not important; the respondents do not see any perspectives for its use in the future. The Latvian language as the official language is respected in the administration of the municipality; however, there is a wish to recognize both Latvian and Russian as official languages. The roles of the school (for the acquisition of the Latvian language) and of the Church (the language of praying is Polish, but masses are held in Russian and Latgalian) are important for the formation of the linguistic scenery of Indra municipality. In the polyethnic and multilingual environment of Indra municipality, there is a predominantly tolerant attitude towards different languages and ethnic groups.


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