What we call linguistic minorities can be classified into the following: 

• Human beings of indigenous origin living on a land whose governing state promotes a dominant language, and who are forced to abandon it often for reasons of inclusion and survival.
• Human beings excluded from their homeland, either migrants or refugees, and often both, who abandon their language often for reasons of inclusion and survival.
• Human beings who speak sign language, primarily hearing-impaired people, but also hearing people who speak LSF for family or professional reasons. They may also experience communication and information access issues.

Thoses people are not only a minority in terms of number of speakers, they are also a minority in terms of rights to express their language, since their languages ​​are not officially recognized and are sometimes even considered illegal. 

Children of linguistic minorities often have not received the language or partially. They may also ignore or deny that another language has been spoken in their families, or conversely speak the heritage language instead of their parents of their own free will or the will of their parents.

• See our page ‘Ressources‘.

Linguistic Persecution & Discrimination

Most linguistic minorities have experienced Linguistic Persecution.

— Sign language was banned until 1991 because it was believed that gestures posed a risk of transmitting tuberculosis, so hot wax was poured into the ears of young deaf children to “unblock their ears.”

— Immigrants must put aside their family language in order to integrate at any cost. Teachers and doctors still advise against bilingualism, and people seek speech therapy to erase their accent in order to find work. Many people still face discrimination related to their language, which represents a different identity.

— Until the 1980s (in all colonies), indigenous people were required to wear a symbol around their necks at school and report a classmate who spoke their language. If the school day ended with the symbol, the punishment was often physical: carrying a stone for an hour, licking the toilet bowl, or washing one’s mouth with soap. 

Glottophobia is the term used to describe linguistic discrimination based on accents, expressions, or attitudes, that stigmatizes or excludes a person based on linguistic factors.

Linguistic persecution has been very well documented in the book from the linguists Rozenn Milin “La honte et le châtiment, Imposer le français : Bretagne, France, Afrique et autres territoires” (Shame & punishment, imposing french : Brittany, France, Africa and other territories) aux Éditions Champ Vallon. 

and Philippe Blanchet & Stéphanie Clerc Conan in the book “Je n’ai plus osé ouvrir la bouche… Témoignages de glottophobie vécue et moyens de se défendre” (I couldn’t open the mouth anymore…) aux Éditions Lambert-Lucas.

Linguistic persecution generates a harmful emotion: shame. Shame against oneself, one’s origins, one’s culture, one’s identity, others, and one’s family, who should not speak this forbidden, shameful, and dirty language. Entire generations (numbering in the millions) are affected by this issue. Ant it is not a minor one: we have inherited linguistic persecution as a norm; we are its descendants. It is a gigantic scandal that intertwines colonization, child abuse, standardization, forced assimilation, ethnogenocide, and more. Very few states today have issued official apologies for the harm caused to these populations.

We call “silent speakers” people who have consciously or unconsciously decided to no longer speak the language as a result of trauma.

In Canada, the First People’s Cultural Council (FPCC) has developed a specific program to help Silent Speakers reclaiming their language, given by the Sámi people from Scandinavia. In couple of weeks, the Speakers can treat the shame and speak again. 

The Language Healing Circles team has been in contact with FPCC board members in charge of the “Reclaiming my language” program for Silent Speakers and Mentor-Apprentice Project.