May 2004

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THE 10th LINGUAPAX CONGRESS WARNS ABOUT THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE DIVERSITY IN SAFEGUARDING SUSTAINABILITY AND PEACE

May 2004 – The Linguapax Institute, the international non-governmental organisation born as a UNESCO initiative and aimed at promoting peace through the respect of linguistic diversity and the promotion of plurilingual education, held on May 20-23 its 10th Congress within the framework of the Universal Forum of Cultures - Barcelona 2004. The event, which gathered a wide variety of outstanding experts concerned about the need to preserve the languages of the world and counter the processes of language shift that are taking place worldwide, analysed the current situation of many different languages (such as Quechua, Guarani, Maori, Basque, Catalan, Romani, Amazigh, pidgins, creoles or Esperanto) and countries (South Africa, Guatemala, Eritrea, Papua New Guinea, Mexico, Morocco, Ireland, Cameroon, Venezuela, China, Italy, Canada, etc.), and it was based on three main thematic axes –language diversity, sustainability and peace– and five specific areas of study: models of language policy and planning, language revitalization and standardisation, balance of the current sociolinguistic research, language law and language rights, and agents in favour of language diversity. The texts of the working sessions will be soon available in the website of the Linguapax Institute. As for the workshops devoted to language law and rights, several themes were approached, as for instance the European scenario, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, the deaf community, etc. Moreover, in the framework of the congress, other events took place: the Linguapax 2004 Awards were given to Joshua Fishman and Fernand de Varennes (for more information, see the website of Linguapax) and a new interesting website was presented (www.amarauna-languages.com). The theme of language diversity is also present in the Forum in an audiovisual exhibition called “Voices”.