Protecting Linguistic and Religious Minorities: Looking for Synergies among Legal Instruments

• Published in: Religions (Basel, Switzerland ) Vol. 12; no. 9; p. 706
• Main Author: Ruiz Vieytez, Eduardo J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-09-2021
• Subjects: accommodation; Cultural factors; Cultural identity; Dialogue; Language; Language diversity; linguistic diversity; Linguistics; Management; minorities; Minority groups; Minority languages; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Protection; Religion; religious diversity; Sociology; Traditions; Europe
• ISSN: 2077-1444; 2077-1444
• DOI: 10.3390/rel12090706

Language and religion are two main cultural markers of collective identities and articulating factors at play in the majority-minority game. However, from a legal and political point of view, language and religion work very differently as factors for determining minorities. This is due, on the one hand, to their different connection with public bodies and, on the other hand, to the different role played by the two identity markers, more substantive in the case of religion and more instrumental in the case of language. Different forms of protection of linguistic and religious diversity and minorities have been developed so far. The two fields of protection have evolved separately and there has hardly been any dialogue between them. This article aims to analyze whether and how the usual forms of protection of linguistic diversity and linguistic minorities can be useful for the management of religious-based diversity or minorities. In this respect, linguistic diversity management draws more inspiration from religious diversity management techniques than the reverse. Nevertheless, a number of techniques that have been applied to the linguistic diversity protection may also play a potential role for the protection of religious diversity, opening the door to further synergies among legal instruments.