BRUSSELS, JULY 2 AND 3, HEARING ON THE SOCIAL, ECONOMICAL AND POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF LINGUISTIC DEMOCRACY
The hearing on linguistic democracy was held on the 2nd and the 3rd of July at the European Parliment headquarters in Brussels, promoted by the ALDE group, on the inistiative of the European deputies, Marco Pannella, Marco Cappato and Henrik Lax, and ERA Onlus, an important politcal encounter on the world of languages and the Unionist-economic situation was held.
The speakers, among which were M.Krauss (the first linguist to announce the death of languages), F.Grin (expert on the economy of languages), S.Klinger (European Chart of Minority and Regional Languages Delegate), J.L. Cousiniez (French Unionist and mouthpiece for those discriminated in the workplace), reported and focused on the problem of linguistic democracy in Europe (and not only), recognizing the importance of the language issue that is often connotated with the economic and social enviroment. Attention has been drawn, in particular, to the European Union’s situation, where a process of re-unification of cultures, languages and cultural diversity is taking place.
According to the UNESCO statistics, 50% of the world’s languages are going to die within this century. The cause of this "linguistic genocide" is the fact tghat, for decades now, the so-called "globalization of communication" has been happening, the tendency of using a single language, which inevitably becomes the dominant one, at the expense of other languages. This will result to the empoverishment of all of humanity’s lingustic and cultural heritage."
Among the various solutions that could solve the problem of linguistic democracy taken in to account during the seminar, the most welcoming one, embraced by the "economy of languages" and deserves some attention, as mentioned by F.Grin, is the same theory supported by Giorgio Pagano, Secretary of the ERA ONLUS: that is to support the use of an international language, Esperanto, that would guarantee equal communication for everyone, without discimination of economic, political or cultural advantages for anyone.