As the Study Group on Language and the United Nations prepares for its annual symposium on June 13, questions concerning language rights nationally and internationally continue to arise.

The New-York-based NGO Committee on Language and Languages met on February 28 to discuss indigenous language rights; and the right to education in the mother tongue was the topic of remarks by Prof. Francis M. Hult, chair of the NGO Committee, at a reception hosted by the Bangladeshi UN Mission to celebrate Mother Language Day on February 21.

The recent declaration by the U.S. President naming English as the national language of the USA will undoubtedly stir debate at the joint US-Canada Esperanto Congress in Toronto (July 11-14) and has only sharpened anxiety on language issues in international contexts.

“Do Linguistic Human Rights Exist?” asked an online seminar organized by Dr. Michele Gazzola of Ulster University on April 10. The question echoed the title of a special issue of the journal Language Problems and Language Planning (LPLP). The journal, a leader in the field of sociolinguistics and language policy, was founded by Esperanto-speaking language specialists half a century ago to examine political and social relationships among languages.