8th FEL Conference   On the Margins of Nations: Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights Barcelona, 29 September - 4 October 2004
		Foundation for Endangered Languages

Coorganized by
Institut d'Estudis Catalans
(Unesco Chair of Languages and Education — Càtedra Unesco de Llengües i Educació)
in cooperation with the
 Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL)

Reportatge fotogràfic 

Important Dates
Abstract submission deadline 19 March 2004
Committee's decision 12 April 2004
In case of acceptance, the full paper should be sent before 18 June 2004. (Further details on the format of text will be specified to the authors) Registration dates: Early birds 31 May (no surcharge) - Other terms
(surcharge): 30 June - 31 July - 30 August - 15 September Conference 1-3 October 2004
Excursions: 29-30 September (Val d'Aran) - 4 October (French Catalonia)

The Foundation for Endangered Languages’ annual meeting comes back to Europe this year, specifically to Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, on Spain’s eastern seaboard. Our topic will be “endangered languages and linguistic rights”, addressed both through reports on actual experience, and through prescriptions for policy. All approaches will be welcome, but three aspects of this vast field are suggested for discussion:

1. The politics of language from the grass-roots activity to political institutions at all levels: how are linguistic rights acknowledged and, where necessary, enforced? How can communities act to defend them?

2. The interplay of the global and the local in linguistic rights — international, national and local: how are identities being redefined in post-nationist discourses?

3. Endangered languages and linguistic rights crossing borders: what rights can be asserted and duties accepted in diaspora situations, in divided language communities and where languages are spoken by migrant groups?

We view language politics and language policy simultaneously from the bottom up and the top down. Language communities’ struggle for rights may take different forms and pursue different goals.

• What claims are the communities making?

• What are the goals of grass-roots action?

• To what extent can one language community take advantage of another’s goals and methods?

• Can any effective language policies be developed top-down?

• How do such policies affect the acknowledgement and enforcement of linguistic rights, from bare toleration up to strong promotion of endangered languages?

• Is positive discrimination necessary in order to achieve equality among languages in a community?

• Where language revitalization programs are in progress, how are duties shared among speaker communities and political powers?

• Is there any way to assess language policies / language revitalization programmes and their effectiveness?

In a world with ever heightened communications, the interplay between the local and the global is increasingly complex. We need to analyse the status of endangered languages with respect to linguistic rights and politics, which now extend beyond the nation to supranational and global organizations. How relevant, for example, are international measures and recommendations, such as UNESCO’s Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2002), Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage (1998) and proposal for a “Convention sur la diversité culturelle” (2003)?

Most endangered languages and communities are enclaves within the limits of a state. Others, however, spread across political and other boundaries. Borders may be considered as either barriers or opportunities. We shall focus on the causes and consequences of these situations:

• How does this cross-border situation affect people’s linguistic rights?

• What kind of policies are favoured by governments towards such divided language communities?

• What kind of international agreements have been / may be developed to manage the issue?

• What happens when the linguistic situation is uneven across a community, with differing rates of language shift or language revitalization?

One social effect of globalization is an increase in migration. This poses other issues:

• What are the rights of diaspora and migrant communities?

• What are the rights and duties of immigrants in their host country?

• What are the rights of nomadic people?

This discussion of rights may end up posing interesting challenges to the kind of discourse that has become usual about endangered languages, which has tended to emphasize the intrinsic value of diversity. But ultimately, we may need to engage in quite different discourses for different audiences. Different communities too may prefer to rely on different lines of argument, and quite different strategies.

Catalonia’s concern for language rights is well-known. It is attested by the Mercator Project on European minority languages, whose Barcelona site deals with language legislation. It is attested by the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, which was read out in a wealth of languages and voices in Barcelona on 6-9 June 1996. Above all, Catalonia has been notable for its success in asserting the place of its own language in the context of the Spanish state. It is highly natural that a conference on Language Rights should take place in Barcelona.

And Barcelona is a city of the European Union – a polity that is neither a state nor an international organization. The Union aspires to respect linguistic diversity, but its linguistic regime provides no official status for minority or endangered languages – even when official in their own states.

Barcelona lies on the shore of the Mediterranean, where peoples, languages and cultures have crossed – and merged – throughout history. The local language, Catalan, is — like French, Spanish, Provençal and many others — derived from Latin. It has a glorious mediaeval past, when it was standardized and used widely in all types of literature as well as government. But from the 16^th century the country began to lose its institutions of self-government and the use of the language in literature decayed. In the 19^th century “la Renaixença” reversed this decline. The embryo of the “Institut d’Estudis Catalans” (IEC), which is co-hosting the conference with FEL, was created in 1907. Over the next 25 years it undertook the codification of Modern Catalan, culminating in a dictionary published in 1932. Since the approval of the Spanish Constitution (1978) and the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia (1979) Catalan has become an official language in Catalonia side by side with Spanish – as well as in other regions in which Catalan is spoken, such as the Balearic Islands and Valencia.

The confluence of bottom-up and top-down policies is one reason for the degree of success that Catalan language policy has achieved. Catalans, however, have a tragic perception of their self and their language: there is constant discussion on the progress, and even the survival, of the language. All this has given birth to the idea, expressed by many scholars, that Catalonia is a laboratory of sociolinguistics and language policy. It is a fitting place, then, for FEL’s latest consideration of endangered languages and their place in the world.