Unesco conference on Language Rights

[egunkaria]

There was actually a Conference on Language Rights sponsored by Unesco, held
in Barcelona on June 96.
A Declaration on Language Rights was aproved there, and it will be presented
to the United Nations.

I will  try to resume you the two main points of the Declaration. I will
translate from a text I have in basque, and I know my english is bad. You
will excuse me, I hope.

LANGUAGE RIGHTS DECLARATION
1. All languages are equal. Language rights cannot be based on political or
administration status, neither on their degree of codification or their
number of speakers. All languages are declared equal, making no unduly
distinctions as these: oficial / unofficial; national / regional / local;
majority / minority; modern / ancient...
2. Language rights are individual and collective at the same time. The
collective and individual dimension of language rights cannot be separated
and are inter-related. Languages are created collectively by a community,
and are used by individuals through the community. If individual language
rights are to be implemented, the rights of communities and language groups
must also be respected.

Other points and comments were made at the Conference. I cannot translate
them now, cause I am leaving right now for holydays. I am a basque
journalist and my newspaper, Euskaldunon Egunkaria, is a subscriber of
Endangered-Language List. Euskaldunon Egunkaria is the one and only daily
newspaper in basque, and one of the few dailies in a minority language.

If you want more information about the conference, a basque association
(EKB) was there in Barcelona (two lawyers, Innigo Urrutia and Innigo
Santxo). Perhaps they have first hand material, probably in english. This is
EKBs electronic address: ekb at eusnet.org

Luis Fernandez 	-Luistxo 	:)
Euskaldunon Egunkaria - Euskal Herria - Basque Country