Linguistic human rights in education

Abstract

In this chapter, we summarize the arguments underpinning the recognition of linguistic human rights (LHRs) as key human rights. While there is ongoing skepticism about the recognition of LHRs, particularly among individual nation-states, there is an emerging jurisprudence in international law supporting LHRs. These developments provide – at least potentially – greater LHRs for ethnolinguistic minorities, including Indigenous peoples, national minorities and other minoritized groups. The area where this is most evident, and potentially most useful, is with respect to the provision of mother tongue or first language education. We thus assess to what extent present language policies and legal instruments facilitate or undermine such rights and also discuss how various research contributions inform arguments for these language rights.