The position of the Universal Esperanto Association on linguistic Rights | www.linguistic-rights.org | Lingvaj rajtoj


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Digno kaj justeco por ĉiu el ni

Dignidad y justicia para todas y todos

Dignité et justice pour nous tous

Dignity and justice for all of us

Lingvaj Rajtoj
Derechos Lingüísticos
الحقوق اللغوية
Droits Linguistiques
ЯЗЫКОВЫЕ ПРАВА
Linguistic Rights
语言权
언어권리
Sprachliche Rechte
Nyelvi jogok
حقوق زبانی
สิทธิทางภาษา
Diritti linguistici
Sproglige rettigheder
Jazyková práva
Taalrechten - taalrechtvaardigheid
Llengua internacional i drets lingüístics
Dil Hakları
. . .



Lingvaj Rajtoj - Derechos Lingüísticos - الحقوق اللغوية - Droits Linguistiques - ЯЗЫКОВЫЕ ПРАВА - Linguistic Rights - 语言权 - 언어권리

The position of the
Universal Esperanto Association
on linguistic rights

Linguistic rights are vital to all peoples, whatever the size of their population. This right needs to be preserved especially for small groups. The Universal Esperanto Association (UEA) has been supporting minority languages for over 100 years.

The right of children to learn their mother tongue and continue their education using their mother tongue is not only important for their culture, it is essential for their psychological development. It has been shown in many large-scale studies in several countries that if indigenous and minority children have their education mainly using their own languages as the teaching language for the first 6-8 years (with good teaching of the dominant language as a second language, given by bilingual teachers), their general school achievement is better and they learn the dominant language better than if their teaching is through the medium of the dominant language. If they have only a year or two in the mother tongue and are then transferred to the dominant language, they may manage fairly well at the beginning, but from approximately fourth grade on, their progress starts slowing down and the gap between them and dominant language children continues to widen.

It is also important for people to be able to communicate at different levels. The UEA advocates learning 2, 3 or 4 languages, according to the circumstances, i.e.:

1. mother tongue
2. regional language, if different
3. national language, if different from the first two
4. an international language, that does not belong to any nation - that is Esperanto.

Esperantists know that when a multinational group uses one neutral, common language, the quality of communication is very special. The ultimate aim of Esperanto is to promote peace between people by making communication easier and more equitable. Using a common language avoids a situation where people who are using their mother tongue have a huge advantage over those who are not.

We would like the United Nations to give some consideration to this as regards their own meetings. The discrepancy is very obvious when one hears delegates expressing themselves in English, French or Spanish for whom it is either the second or third language. When a mother-tongue speaker takes the floor, often the difference is striking - what they say has much more weight and attracts much more attention than a speaker who is speaking a foreign language.

The great hope of Esperantists is that the world will become a more peaceful place, and we believe that effective communication plays a very important role in achieving this.

Reference: Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, adopted by General Assembly resolution 47/135 of 18 December 1992



Resolutions of UNESCO in favour of Esperanto: 1954, 1985

2017

Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, the most successful and the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language in the world.

2017 Poland.
100th anniversary of the death of Ludwik Zamenhof, physician and linguist (1859-1917) (with the support of Germany and Slovakia) (2017).

    Born inside the multinational community of the city of Bialystok, L. Zamenhof (1859-1917) created the first version of his Lingwe Uniwersala already at a young age. In 1885 Zamenhof decisively finished his project of the international language as we know it today. In 1887 he published a textbook in Russian: “The international tongue – Preface and complete method”, under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto. The pseudonym means “The Doctor who hopes” and has caught on as the name of the language. In the same year the textbook was published in Polish, French, German and English.
    The first Esperanto clubs started to come into being, and the advantages of the language were recognized by linguists too. In 1905 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, the first World Congress of Esperanto took place. While staying in France, Zamenhof was decorated with the National Order of the Legion of Honour. In 1906 Zamenhof published humanitism (homaranismo), which is the idea of the union of all the nations communicating in a common language.
    The Esperanto movement he initiated has spread all over the world, while the creator released all his rights, liberating Esperanto for every human’s use. The work of L. Zamenhof is known worldwide reaching over 120 countries. The idea of a common language has fascinated many people and lots of them made similar attempts at creating one, but Zamenhof’s case is the only one to have achieved world success.
(UNESCO)



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