LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN MULTICULTURAL STATES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Abstract

The fashionable view of the world today is often evoked in the cliché of the global village: the concept that everyone now has the power to enquire about things that were, until recently, hopelessly foreign. But set against this seemingly harmonious background are conflicts produced by language. Jerome Paradis analyses language rights in multicultural states through the language legislation and present de facto status of languages in Belgium and Switzerland, and the language problem, the Official Languages Act and recommendations of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in Canada. A comparative analysis of Canada and the European states completes the study.