Language rights and groups of immigrant origin
The case of language claimsin the Spanish cities in North Africa
Iker Erdocia | Dublin City University
In this article, I aim to analyse language rights in relation to groups of immigrant origin. Liberal democracies
are reluctant to consider immigrant groups as subjects entitled to the same set of language and cultural rights enjoyed by
national minorities. However, the trend towards increasing levels of immigration is configuring new cultural and language
correlations within territorial boundaries that provoke responses that problematise a fixed conception of language rights. Drawing
on theories of liberal multiculturalism, I examine the case of claims for language recognition in the Spanish autonomous cities of
Ceuta and Melilla and its normative implications. In these territories, factors such as size, concentration, and the historical
ties of Arabic- and Berber-speaking communities challenge conventional approaches to minority groups’ rights based on a national
versus immigrant minority distinction. I argue that these approaches are not satisfactory for language claims in these two cities
and that a contextual approach is better suited to conceptualising the recognition of language rights.
Keywords: language rights, language claims, language policy, migration, political theory, multiculturalism, contextualism
Published online: 24 September 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.19025.erd
https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.19025.erd
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