Language Rights, Literacy, and the Modern State

Abstract

Abstract In this chapter I am concerned with arguments for language rights and (which is different) language preservation. In particular I am concerned with the ways in which they sometimes proceed as if language consolidation arises in a vacuum, as if it’s simply a bad idea on the part of malicious majority-language policy makers. I will argue that questions of language policy and language rights cannot be understood in isolation from the social and political changes that have created such strong trends toward monolingualism at the state level. That is not to say that these trends should not be resisted; it is to say that they cannot be ignored.