This book explores the ways and means by which English threatens the vitality and diversity of other languages and cultures in the modern world. Using the metaphor of the Hydra monster from ancient Greek mythology, it explores the use and misuse of English in a wide range of contexts, revealing how the dominance of English is being confronted and counteracted around the globe. The authors explore the language policy challenges for governments and education systems at all levels, and show how changing the role of English can lead to greater success in education for a larger proportion of children. Through personal accounts, poems, essays and case studies, the book calls for greater efforts to ensure the maintenance of the world's linguistic and cultural diversity.

Only a few hundred of the world's 6,000-7,000 languages have any kind of official status, and it is only speakers of official languages (speakers of dominant majority languages) who enjoy all linguistic human rights. As many of the collected papers in this book document, most linguistic minorities are deprived of these rights. This book describes what linguistic human rights are, who has and who does not have them and why, and suggests which linguistic rights should be regarded as basic human rights. Linguistic Human Rights introduces a new area, combining sociolinguistics, educational, and minority concerns with human rights. Discrimination against language minorities is widespread, despite national and international law prohibiting this. The book analyzes language rights in many countries worldwide, including North and Latin America, several European states, the former USSR, India, Kurdistan, Australia and New Zealand.

The principles for enabling children to become fully proficient multilinguals through schooling are well known. Even so, most indigenous/tribal, minority and marginalised children are not provided with appropriate mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MLE) that would enable them to succeed in school and society. In this book experts from around the world ask why this is, and show how it can be done. The book discusses general principles and challenges in depth and presents case studies from Canada and the USA, northern Europe, Peru, Africa, India, Nepal and elsewhere in Asia. Analysis by leading scholars in the field shows the importance of building on local experience. Sharing local solutions globally can lead to better theory, and to action for more social justice and equality through education.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

"Rights to Language: Equity, Power, and Education" brings together cutting-edge scholarship in language, education, and society from all parts of the world. Celebrating the 60th birthday of Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, it is inspired by her work in minority, indigenous, and immigrant education; multilingualism; linguistic human rights; and global language and power issues. "Rights to Language" situates issues of minorities and bilingual education in broader perspectives of human rights, power, and the ecology of language. The rich mix of papers serves to underline that the issues are comparable worldwide, that many disparate topics can cross-fertilize each other, and that our understanding of the issues can benefit from coverage that is global, reflective, and committed.
A Web site with additional resource materials to this book can be found on http: //www.cbs.dk/staff/phillipson/

English-Only Europe? explores the role of languages in the process of European integration.
Languages are central to the development of an integrated Europe. The way in which the European Union deals with multilingualism has serious implications for both individual member countries and international relations.
In this book, Robert Phillipson considers whether the contemporary expansion of English represents a serious threat to other European languages. After exploring the implications of current policies, Phillipson argues the case for more active language policies to safeguard a multilingual Europe. Drawing on examples of countries with explicit language policies such as Canada and South Africa, the book sets out Phillipson's vision of an inclusive language policy for Europe, and describes how it can be attained.

English-Only Europe? explores the role of languages in the process of European integration.
Languages are central to the development of an integrated Europe. The way in which the European Union deals with multilingualism has serious implications for both individual member countries and international relations.
In this book, Robert Phillipson considers whether the contemporary expansion of English represents a serious threat to other European languages. After exploring the implications of current policies, Phillipson argues the case for more active language policies to safeguard a multilingual Europe. Drawing on examples of countries with explicit language policies such as Canada and South Africa, the book sets out Phillipson's vision of an inclusive language policy for Europe, and describes how it can be attained.

"Rights to Language: Equity, Power, and Education" brings together cutting-edge scholarship in language, education, and society from all parts of the world. Celebrating the 60th birthday of Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, it is inspired by her work in minority, indigenous, and immigrant education; multilingualism; linguistic human rights; and global language and power issues. "Rights to Language" situates issues of minorities and bilingual education in broader perspectives of human rights, power, and the ecology of language. The rich mix of papers serves to underline that the issues are comparable worldwide, that many disparate topics can cross-fertilize each other, and that our understanding of the issues can benefit from coverage that is global, reflective, and committed.
A Web site with additional resource materials to this book can be found on http: //www.cbs.dk/staff/phillipson/

Research on Language Rights has produced an enormous-and unwieldy-corpus of literature. Such work often has limitations because scholars from different disciplinary traditions have seldom coordinated their concerns or integrated the conceptual traditions of particular fields. To enable researchers and advanced students to make sense of this vast literature, and the disparate scholarly approaches, Routledge announces Language Rights, a new title in its Critical Concepts in Language Studies series. In four volumes, the set draws on a wide range of disciplines, including language policy, political theory, education, law, philosophy, anthropology, economics, minority studies, deaf studies, and Indigenous cosmologies. The editors have assembled both normative texts and studies of their practical applications over the past century in a wide range of countries, as well as more diverse interventions and interpretations. Volume I ('Language Rights, Past and Present: From Minority Rights to Linguistic Human Rights') presents some of the basic concepts in language rights and traces developments from treaties and national constitutions to human rights principles, and conditions for the maintenance of languages. Volume II ('Multilingualism, Education, and Language Rights Granted or Denied: Policies and Politics') explores the tensions between homogenizing nation states and the status of indigenous and minority languages in education. Volume III in the collection ('Language Rights and Endangered Languages') brings together the best thinking on recent developments in language and cultural revitalization through community mobilization around language rights, especially in education, the preconditions for their success, their relationship to land rights and self-determination, and state responses to demands for language rights. Finally, Volume IV ('Language Rights: Global and Regional Integration and Diversity Maintenance') assesses ongoing trends of regional and global integration and questions the prospects for the world's languages in the light of economic and cultural constraints, and the weaknesses of the international human rights system. With newly written, comprehensive introductions to each volume, and to the collection as a whole, Language Rights is destined to be welcomed as a vital research and pedagogic resource.

This volume brings together key writings since the 1992 publication of Linguistic Imperialism - Robert Phillipson's controversial benchmark volume, which triggered a major re-thinking of the English teaching profession by connecting the field to wider political and economic forces. Analyzing how the global dominance of English in all domains of power is maintained, legitimized and persists in the twenty-first century, Linguistic Imperialism Continued reflects and contributes in important ways to understanding these developments. This book is not for sale in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan.

This volume brings together key writings since the 1992 publication of Linguistic Imperialism - Robert Phillipson's controversial benchmark volume, which triggered a major re-thinking of the English teaching profession by connecting the field to wider political and economic forces. Analyzing how the global dominance of English in all domains of power is maintained, legitimized and persists in the twenty-first century, Linguistic Imperialism Continued reflects and contributes in important ways to understanding these developments.

This book is not for sale in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan.