NGO Committee on Language and Languages

New York City, 30 September 2020 (CoNGO InfoNews) — The formation of an NGO Committee on Language and Languages is underway under the auspices of CoNGO (The Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations). The full text of the proposal is available here.

The Committee will be based in New York and will accept membership from NGO representatives from around the world. Its proponent, Humphrey Tonkin, propounds that “Fundamental to the work of the United Nations is the spoken and written word. The United Nations is a place of negotiation and action in which language and communication underlie everything that it does.”

“The UN Secretariat works in two languages; the General Assembly works in six; the various members of the UN family have their own language policies, intended to promote inclusion. Beyond its official languages, the United Nations interacts with the public in a host of other languages. “

Why language and languages? As the proposal says, the “Committee will cover both language use at the UN (sexist language, the language of hate, the language of peace, human rights language) and the use of languages at the UN (provision of translation and interpretation, documentation, outreach to speakers of other languages, parity among languages, protection and promotion of indigenous languages, etc.).”

Tonkin is on the board of directors of CoNGO. He represents the Universal Esperanto Association as an NGO representative at the United Nations. He is President and University Professor of the Humanities, emeritus, of the University of Hartford in Connecticut.

Tonkin and Chuck Mays recently penned an opinion piece about linguistic equality and justice, including Esperanto opposition “to discrimination on grounds of language, the suppression of minority languages” and how they “favor the promotion of linguistic rights as part of those rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

Liberato Bautista, the president of CoNGO, welcomed the move to form the NGO Committee. “I look forward to constituting the committee and welcoming it as an important addition to the 35 NGO committees under CoNGO’s umbrella.”

NGO Committees are either based in New York, Geneva, or Vienna. Today, there are also committees focused on women and gender operating out of four political regions in the world.

The establishment of an NGO committee is guided by the CoNGO Rules, in particular Rules 38 to 48 (see sidebar). Twenty (20) NGOs with ECOSOC consultative status are needed to start the process of constituting the committee.

NGOs interested in becoming inaugural and constituting members of the NGO Committee on Language and Languages must send an email to Humphrey Tonkin (tonkin@hartford.edu) and Liberato Bautista (president@ngocongo.org), indicating their desire to join in forming the committee. Once twenty NGOs have formalized their request to form the Committee, the CoNGO president will call a meeting to constitute the Committee.

To join in forming this new Committee, fill out the form here.