Language Rights

Abstract

The rhetoric of language rights activists is reviewed noting that besides the obvious goal of requiring mother tongue education, the implied message is that language shift & language change are undesirable. The necessary component of a self-fulfilling life, according to this viewpoint, is the knowledge of mother tongue & an ethnically based culture. It is considered the duty of the government to provide mother tongue learning & the duty of children to have it. It is suggested that the reason, in some cases, for this approach seems to be to reduce the role of English. It is concluded that language rights include empowering education to achieve a decent life, & language shift & contact should be viewed as part of human experience, not to be automatically deplored. B. Gadalla.