Production: Institut d’Edicions de la Diputació de Barcelona
Design: Miquel Llach
Printing: Inresa DL: B-18173-98
Which languages from all over the world are spoken by the authors of the Universal Declaration of
Linguistic Rights? Countless, we would dare to say. In any case, from more than 90 states and
5 continents, more than 200 people gathered on June 6th, 1996, in Barcelona to proclaim the Declaration.
Some represented small local NGOs committed to teaching a language not recognized by the official
education system of their country. There were writers in many different languages who use their
language every day to create literary universes open to all. Others represented international NGOs whose
mission is the defence of linguistic rights.
Others were experts in law, in languages, in sociolinguistics
and in various fields of knowledge which converge in the academic study of linguistic rights.
For all of them, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights promises a future of coexistence and peace
thanks to the recognition of the right that each linguistic community has to shape its own life in its own
language in all fields. And so they proclaimed. Since then, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights
has spread: each month there is news about its translation into a new language, a new affiliation of some
organization that might not have been associated to the process, or about an international personality
who has decided to support the Declaration and with it the defence of all languages in an international
context which threatens the survival of many of them.
That original text, written, amended, approved and proclaimed at non-governmental level wants never theless to contribute to the work of the United Nations. It aims to be a strong motivation, an appeal
to the states so that, in the dynamics started by the Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, they would
recognize the linguistic rights of the individuals and of their communities.
The association of UNESCO
to our process from the very beginning and the work it has been doing along these lines gives us hope
that some day a normative body of the United Nations regulating the defence of linguistic rights all over
the world will be approved. This book wants to contribute to this work.
In this book the text of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights appears and it is explained how
it was written and proclaimed in the World Conference on Linguistic Rights. It is the work done by 61
NGOs, 41 PEN Club centres and over 40 experts in linguistic rights, coming from the five continents. The testimony of well-known personalities from all over the world also appears, as well as that of
writers and people who fight for rights, for peace and who wanted to join us in this project.
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