Language and Human Conflict

Language Conflict and Language Rights: Ethnolinguistic Perspectives on Human Conflict (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press) provides an introduction to ethnolinguistic conflict and language rights, as it explores the many ways in which language is the primary vehicle for personal, ethnic, and national identity. The book surveys fourteen specific cases, providing detailed historical and linguistic backgrounds for them, along with an account of the language rights violations that have played out in each. It also introduces a novel typology of language conflict and rights cases. 

This book relates to other activities that are part of a broader project with the goal of understanding language conflict and language rights around the world. Professors Dubinsky and Davies are proposing to build a curated data archive of information about ethnolinguistic conflicts that will be geo-located on a world map, and information about each conflict will include the state or territory of the conflict, the ethnic groups involved, the languages spoken by each group. Additionally, Professor Dubinsky has been invited to present his research at two upcoming conferences in South Africa, including the African Languages Association of Southern Africa (ALASA) (with Professor Davies) and at the Conference of the Language Associations of Southern Africa (CLASA).