This book makes an important contribution to the growing debate on linguistic human rights. By bringing together research on language rights, language 'survival' and minority language planning in specific contexts from Africa, Asia, Central and North America and Europe, it aims to illustrate how current conceptualizations of language rights can sometimes stand in the way of their successful realization.

The book considers such theoretical and practical issues as: the constitution of ethnic identities and their links with language; relations between language, politics and power; language ecology and revitalization movements; the dominance of particular models of language, their appropriateness to particular contexts and their relationship to speakers' own perceptions. It is targeted towards a wide readership in the fields of sociology, sociolinguistics and anthropology, language rights law, and language policy and planning.