"Prohibits a member nation from purposely enacting measures through law which aim to deliberately eradicate a living minority language, or endorse any other efforts to shatter active discourse in the language with the intention of causing language death in its nation,"
The intention of this clause is not to protect the speakers of the language directly from discrimination (whom are already protected under the Charter of Civil Rights), but the language itself from policies which seek to purposely eliminate discourse of the language within a nation's borders, either through brazen legal prohibitions of the language's practice, or more subtle methods to discourage its use. An important element of this clause to keep in mind is that:
a.) these policies have to be severe enough to put the language at risk of endangerment or death within its nation. Simply instituting an official language for use in governmental functions and or in public sectors is not sufficient enough to be covered with this provision, though it is addressed later.
b.) The policies to be enacted have to be deliberate, made with the intention of attacking the language's practice. Policies created with a population's goodwill in mind that inadvertently cause decay in proficiency of a language, such as educational initiatives or economic integration of the populace, does not constitute a deliberate attempt to harm the language, and is thus not prohibited.
"Again confirms an individual's right to learn and write, emphasizing for the purpose of this resolution an individual's right to learn and practice their native language if they so please,"
The purpose of this clause in essence is to produce a
right for a population to practice their language. The wording of the clause does this by using GA 234 Freedom to Read and Learn as a foundation, and extending its meaning to convey this new sentiment. This was necessary because I want this to be a Cultural Heritage proposal, not a Human Rights proposal, so I couldn't create a standalone right. Declaring something a right gives it more respect and protection, which is why I see it as a constructive tool to protect vulnerable languages.
"Encourages a multilingual nation to foster healthy linguistic diversity within its borders as suggested from the following committee,"
This seeks to protect minority languages by creating an environment where they are tolerated. I wrote as a replay in my thread:
"Healthy linguistic diversity is intentionally broad; but basically it boils down to the dominant culture in a society being tolerant towards minority languages' existence; refraining from enacting an aggressive language policy or pushing for destructive language purism. I understand that every nation needs some form of social integration which may include a preference for the dominant language, which is why this is merely just an encouragement; the first Prohibits clause applies only if these policies lead to language death. I figured that the specifics of the definition would be articulated by my language committee, which nations could look to for guidance."
The purpose for the clause is self-explanatory; it is not a full-stop prohibition like the first clause, recognizing the realities and intricate nature of protecting a language, but it seeks to remove systemic and social burdens that many minority languages face as a contributing factor of language loss.
Onto the committee. The first part of the committee's role is to gather academic information on the endangered languages of the WA. The duties written were specifically selected to assist global efforts to combat language loss by disclosing linguistic data and information on the world's languages. Previous iterations of this proposal had the committee do tasks such as documenting the basic grammar and collecting cultural works. This, however, was edited out in later revisions in order to reduce the workload of the committee.
Now, for the controversial 'preservation and revitalization' part of committee. Previous legislation/proposals on language have failed due to a.) cost vs. benefit concerns, and b.) practically of the committees work load. Much of the concern on the GA forum was the effectiveness of a single WA committee attempting to preserve and revitalize all these languages. This is why the committee has been retooled to being a mere authoritative body on the matter of language preservation and revitalization, developing and promulgating methods and studies to the WA population on how best to achieve this. The committee only goes 'into the field' as to say when it is requested by either a nation's government or local population, where it acts in a supportive rule.
By doing this it is hoped that WA money will only go to genuine efforts that are meaningful and realistic, rather then throwing money away in revitalization attempts that are hopeless, or where the population is apathetic/unwilling. By limiting the scope of the committee to only these cases, the workload is also greatly diminished.
rotecting Minority Languages
