forwarded message from Krauss

[Mari Rhydwen]

From: Michael Krauss, e-mail address fyanlp at aurora.alaska.edu

        Thank you Luis Fernandez and Piripi Walker for your reports on
the Barcelona Declaration on Language Rights. I am finally breaking my
long silence in this area of activism, after some discouragement about
the possible role of UNESCO, now hopefully outdated, in such issues which
might entail "interfering" in the internal affairs of sovereign states,
too many of which, including some of those with the largest numbers of
languages, are serious offenders in violation of language rights. I wish
here simply to point out, in case track of it remains lost, as seemed to
be the case four years ago, that an important basic precedent declaration
had been adopted by the UN in 1996, to wit "In those states in which
ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belnging to
such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other
members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and
practice their own religion, or to use their own language" (Article 27 of
the 1966 UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: see
Yearbook of the United Nations 1966, p.427. The 1966 Yearbook shows,
p.418, a list of 106 nations voting in favor of the covenant; the 1976
one, p.609 and 1986 p.692-693 and 714-715 show which natins had ratified
it.) I submit this reference in case any reminders are still needed.
We've come a long way since then, but language loss has been proceeding
at least as fast. Congratulations on the Barcelona conference and
declaration.
Michael Krauss
Alaska Native Language Center
University of Alaska Fairbanks
P.O. Box 757680
Fairbanks Alaska  99775-7680 USA

Mari Rhydwen, Communication Studies,Humanities, Perth, WA 6150, Australia

Telephone: 09 360 2217  Fax: 09 360 6367