Linguistic Human Rights For The Deaf Sign Language Users And The Saami

El UEA-vikio

Exclusion or inclusion – linguistic human rights for a linguistic minority, the Deaf Sign language users,and an indigenous people, the Saami

Tove Skutnabb-Kangas & Ulla Aikio-Puoskari

University of Roskilde, Department of Languages and Culture, Denmark. Homepage/contact: http://www.tove-skutnabb-kangas.org/, www.terralingua.org,

Saami Parliament in Finland, Office for Education and Learning Materials www.samediggi.fi; ulla.aikio@samediggi.inet.fi

1. Introduction

We are interested in two types of issues in this article which we initially formulate as two general questions. To what extent can language rights (or, more particularly, linguistic human rights, LHRs) be used to support indigenous peoples and minorities if these want to maintain and/or revitalise their languages? Secondly, can one see any systematic differences between situations where attempts to guarantee language rights to certain groups have been "successful" and where they have been less successful? In order to even start answering the two questions we would obviously need to survey and compare a huge amount of evidence from various situations worldwide, and this is impossible within this article. What we want to do, instead of suggesting even tentative answers, is to formulate some more detailed questions on the basis of two case studies which might provide some hints about a few possible factors that might explain the very different outcomes (exclusion from rights versus inclusion in some regimes of rights) in the two case studies. Our cases include a linguistic minority group, Deaf Sign language users in Europe, and an indigenous people, the Saami who live in four countries, Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden, with 10 different Saami languages , but not all ethnic Saami speak Saami (in Finland, for instance, approximately a third declare it their mother tongue). Here we concentrate mainly on the three Saami languages in Finland.

First, what are linguistic human rights? There have been many clauses on language rights in various constitutions and bilateral agreements for a couple of centuries, and even the first multilateral agreements about language rights are more than a century old (see Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson 1994 for a short history). Most present-day human rights stem from the era of the United Nations and are thus maximally half a century old. During the League of Nations, between the two "World" Wars, many minority rights agreements contained clauses about minority languages, but these are today more or less obsolete. When the UN's Universal Bill of Human Rights was being drafted, the emphasis was on individual rights: every individual was, on the basis of being a human being, supposed to have some inalienable rights that no state was allowed to violate.There was no consensus about inclusion of minority rights, which by their nature are collective/group rights. Since every individual was supposed to be protected through having individual rights, no other protection was deemed to be needed, and, besides, as Eleanor Roosevelt, the main USA negotiator of the Bill of Rights put it, minorities were “a European problem” (ironic when considering the facts that maximally 3% of the world's languages are in Europe - the Americas have some 15% - and that USA and Australia have killed more indigenous languages during the last century than any other countries. It was only after the report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Minorities, Francesco Capotorti (1979) that some minority rights started to appear again. The first agreements which have linguistic rights as one of the main areas are all from the last decade or two. The concept of linguistic human rights (LHRs) itself is equally recent in international law and even more recent in most other disciplines (see, e.g., Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson (eds) 1994, de Varennes 1996, Thornberry 1991, May 2001, Kymlicka & Patten (eds) 2003). LHRs are those language-related rights which are seen as so inalienable, so fundamental for basic needs and a dignified life that no states (or other individuals/groups) are allowed to violate them. Thus all language rights are not linguistic human rights. So far, there is no concensus about which language rights should be seen as LHRs. The process of mapping them out has only started. It is clear, though, that LHRs should be both individual and collective. So far, no international human rights instruments exist that would concentrate on LHRs only, and the only proposal for one (see http://www.linguistic-declaration.org/) has met with massive criticism and has not progressed further in the United Nations system since it was handed over to UNESCO in Barcelona in 1996. The first regional human rights instrument which concentrates on language rights is the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages from 1992, in force since 1998 see http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/EN/cadreprincipal.htm; its treaty number is 148). States ratifying it can choose both for which languages they ratify it and which paragraphs they want to choose from a "menu" - a minimum number and some other conditions are specified (see chapter 7 of Skutnabb-Kangas 2000 for details on LHRs).

The study of language rights, including LHRs, has grown enormously during recent years and has caught the interest of not only human rights and international lawyers and sociolinguists but also educationists, sociologists, political scientists, media researchers and linguists, all with different agendas and theory building. Unfortunately, there is so far too little contact between the various groups, resulting in misunderstandings and fruitless debates. This is an area that by its nature should be multi- and transdisciplinary.

It is easy to see a clear hierarchy in to what extent various groups have succeeded in getting language rights. Oral language users have more rights than Sign language users. Dominant linguistic majorities have more rights than indigenous peoples and all minorities. Of the minorities, numerically large autochthonous (often called national) territorially based minorities, especially those speaking languages which have an official status in some other country, are in a much better position than numerically small, endemic (=in one country only) minorities, non-territorial minorities, immigrant and refugee minorities. Language rights, especially educational LHRs, may help in preventing linguistic genocide and in supporting the maintenance and further development of threatened languages. For this to happen, the group needs to have these rights in the first place. Our case studies present some aspects of two different outcomes of attempts to secure more LHRs.

2. Case 1: unsuccessful attempts to guarantee language rights. Sign Languages, the Good Friday Agreement and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

No country has so far ratified the European Charter for any Sign language. When representatives of various countries have asked for advice from the relevant Council of Europe office, they have been told that Sign languages are not minority languages in the sense of the Charter (this was, for instance, the advice to the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in April 2001, just prior to the Danish ratification, according to the Ministry's letter to the Danish Association of the Deaf; told me by the Secretary of the Association, Helle Skjoldan). Still, Sign languages do objectively fulfill all the criteria set forth in the Charter's definition of minority languages. Wrong information and myths prevail.

This is made easier by an unfortunately all too common confusion about terminology in the field of minority rights. We present two examples. In the first one, various writers in a conference book on "Language and Politics” (Kirk & Ó Baoill (eds) 2001) claim that they quote the same text, the Good Friday Agreement from Ireland (http://www.nio.gov.uk/issues/agreement.htm). But some authors’ rendering of the text makes the inclusion of Sign languages in the Good Friday Agreement impossible whereas the other “quotation” enables it. In our second example, we deconstruct the incorrect arguments, which have been and are being used to exclude Sign languages from the European Charter.

2.1. Good Friday Agreement - "linguistic minorities" or "ethnic communities"?

What does the Good Friday Agreement (Guid Fryday Greement, Horsbroch 2000: 137) text actually say? Compare the following alleged quotes from it:

All participants recognise the importance of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity including, in Northern Ireland, the Irish language, Ulster-Scots and the languages of the various linguistic minorities, all of which are part of the cultural wealth of the island of Ireland" (Seán Farren, 2000: 121; emphasis added).

Our comment is: this could include Sign languages because their Deaf users constitute linguistic minorities (see 3.3 below).

But what Seán Farren renders as "linguistic minorities", is replaced in the same book by at least two eminent people, Tom Hadden (2000: 115-116) and Dauvit Horsbroch (2000: 137), by "the languages of the various ethnic communities" (emphasis added). Our comment is: this would exclude Sign language. While their users ARE linguistic minorities, they are NOT ethnic communities.

Both texts cannot be correct - still the difference makes all the difference for Deaf users of Sign languages. You, dear reader, can check yourself what the Good Friday Agreement in fact says (see the web address above). It is also interesting that the editors have not pointed out the disagreement between the two renderings. To us this shows that neither the authors nor the editors have noticed the far-reaching consequences for Sign language users of using “linguistic minorities” or “ethnic communities”. Even among people who are supposed to be experts on Sign languages and the Deaf, we may encounter worryingly uninformed opinions about these languages and about bilingual education for Deaf Sign language users. Here are four quotes from the same book about BSL, the British Sign Language, from Bob McCullough (2000):

1.I also feel that BSL has been given a mystical status that tends to absorb too much of some deaf people's time and prevents them buckling down to education so that they may acquire the qualifications needed for progress in the real world. (p. 93).

2.BSL is a language of communication and cannot be recognized as an official language because it has no written form (p. 93).

3.Advocates of BSL say it is a language in itself with its own structure, its own idioms and its own linguistic history. I do not argue with this. But I do insist that it is a language without books and incapable in itself of enabling deaf people to achieve the potential which their intelligence and natural ability equips them (p. 94).

4.I welcome BSL interpreters in educational settings and for communication with doctors and other officials. But I cannot see us having any meaningful part in higher office until English is recognized as our first and most essential language (p. 94).

Even when McCullough has some good suggestions too, the quotes are insidious and dangerous. They glorify English, stigmatize British Sign Language, and rationalize the relationship between them in a way that completely invalidates Sign language so that it is seen as not fit for being the mother tongue, the first and most essential language of the Deaf, or an official language. It seems fit only for some transitional purposes and not much time should be used on it. In McCullough’s opinion, Deaf children in school should be allowed some interpretation rather than using the Sign language as the main medium of education (which is obviously the only alternative that is supported by research).

Most of this is counterfactual or unscientific, and constitutes a serious violation of Deaf people's linguistic human rights. These arguments are surprisingly similar to the false arguments used to exclude Sign languages from the European Charter, which we turn to next. At the same time as we deconstruct these, we also deconstruct McCullough's arguments.

2.2. What are the arguments for excluding Sign languages from the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages? No state has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages for any Sign language, even if they could have done it. States can choose to include or exclude various languages, without needing to argue for exclusion, but if they exclude languages with the help of arguments, these arguments need to be valid arguments. We are here interested in what kind of arguments have been used to exclude Sign languages.

Verena Krausneker quotes in her MA-thesis Sign Languages in the Minority Languages Policy of the European Union (1998: 22) a written statement on Sign languages and the European Charter by Mr. Fernando Albanese. He was the Director of Environment and Local Authorities in the Secretariat General of the Council of Europe at the point when the European Charter was being negotiated. Mr. Albanese does

'not think on the basis of the information in my possession that the Charter applies to Sign Languages. In any case, such a problem was never raised during the negotiations of the Charter'.

The 'information' that Mr. Albanese claims to possess is in fact serious misinformation and completely false. He claims that

'the Sign Languages are connected with a handicap and not with the membership to a group, ethnically, religiously or linguistically different from the majority of the population of a state'.

A 'regional or minority language' for the purposes of the Charter requires that this language be

'different from the official language(s) of the State; it does not include either dialects of the official language(s) of the State or the languages of migrants' (Article 1(a)ii)

Mr. Albanese then uses the following argument to exclude Sign languages. He thinks that the essential element required by the definition, namely

'the difference in respect of the official language(s) of the State' is missing, because 'If I understand it correctly, Sign Languages are means of communication within any language' (Krausneker 1998: 22; emphasis added).

We shall next deconstruct the arguments. Mr. Albanese has claimed two things: 1. The Deaf do not fulfill the requirements of being a minority 2. Sign languages do not fulfill the requirements for being regional or minority languages.

2.3. Deconstructing the arguments: are the Deaf a minority? The Deaf do objectively fulfill most of the criteria for being a minority, regardless of which definition of a minority is used. The problem is that many of the bureaucrats responsible for the interpretation and management of various Charters and Conventions do not seem to know enough about the characteristics of the Deaf communities in order to assess to what extent the various criteria are fulfilled (see Capotorti 1979 for the difficulty of defining minorities; see also Andrýsek 1989, Packer 1993). There is no definition of a minority that would be universally accepted in international law, but most definitions are very similar indeed. 'Most definitions use as defining characteristics a combination of the following: A. Numbers ; B. Dominance is used in some but not others ('in an inferior and non-dominant position', Andrýsek 1989: 60; 'in a non-dominant position', Capotorti 1979: 96); C. Ethnic or religious or linguistic traits, features or characteristics, or cultural bonds and ties which are (markedly) different from those of the rest of the population (in most definitions); D. A will/wish (if only implicit) to safeguard, or preserve, or strengthen the patterns of life and behaviour, or culture, or traditions, or religion, or language of the group is specifically mentioned in most definitions (e.g. Capotorti 1979: 96). Language is included in most but not all definitions (e.g. not in Andrýsek's definition 1989: 60). E. Citizenship/nationality in the state concerned is required in most definitions in charters and covenants as part of the definition, i.e. minorities are defined so as to give national or regional minorities more rights than to immigrants and refugees (who, by definition, are considered non-national and non-regional). In contrast, academic definitions for research purposes often make no mention of nationality as a criterion.' (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 489-490).

As an example of a broad definition, we present the definition by one of the authors (from Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson 1994: 107, Note 2; Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 491), which is based on a reformulation of the definition by the Council of Europe Commission for Democracy through Law (91) 7, Art. 2 .

'A group which is smaller in number than the rest of the population of a State, whose members have ethnic, religious or linguistic features different from those of the rest of the population, and are guided, if only implicitly, by the will to safeguard their culture, traditions, religion or language.

Any group coming within the terms of this definition shall be treated as an ethnic, religious or linguistic minority.

To belong to a minority shall be a matter of individual choice.'

Skutnabb-Kangas has in this definition omitted the requirement of citizenship ('who are nationals of that State'), because a forced change of citizenship to her mind cannot be required in order to be able to enjoy basic human rights . Besides, most Deaf are citizens of the state where they live.

As we can see, the Deaf fulfill all the criteria: 1. they are as a group 'smaller in number than the rest of the population of a State; 2. they 'have … linguistic features different from those of the rest of the population'; and 3. they have, through their organizations, shown 'the will to safeguard their culture, traditions … or language.'

Therefore, the Deaf are a national linguistic minority to whom the European Charter should apply. If an individual claims that she belongs to a national minority, and the State claims that such a national linguistic minority does not exist, there is a conflict, and the State may refuse to grant the minority person or group rights which it has accorded or might accord to national minorities. In many definitions of minority, minority rights thus become conditional on the acceptance by the State of the existence of a minority in the first place. According to my definition (and this part was suggested by Council of Europe itself!), minority status does NOT depend on the acceptance of the State, but is either 'objectively' ('coming within the terms of this definition' or subjectively verifiable ('a matter of individual choice'), or both, as is the case here for the Deaf. This interpretation has been confirmed by the UN Human Rights Committee in 1994. They reinterpreted Article 27 of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966, in force since 1976) in a General Comment of 6 April 1994 (UN Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.5, 1994. Article 27 is still the most far-reaching Article in (binding) human rights law granting linguistic rights:

"In those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language."

Until the reinterpretation, the Article was mostly interpreted as n excluding (im)migrants (who have not been seen as minorities); n excluding groups (even if they are citizens) which are not recognised as minorities by the State; n only conferring some protection against discrimination (= "negative rights") but not a positive right to maintain or even use one's language; n not imposing any obligations on the States.

The UN Human Rights Committee sees the Article as n protecting all individuals on the State's territory or under its jurisdiction (i.e. also immigrants and refugees), irrespective of whether they belong to the minorities specified in the Article or not; n stating that the existence of a minority does not depend on a decision by the State but requires to be established by objective criteria; n recognising the existence of a "right"; n imposing positive obligations on the States.

For Deaf people this means that various countries minimally have to see the Deaf as a (linguistic) minority, protected by Article 27. Likewise, the reinterpretation means that minorities, including the Deaf, are supposed to have positive language rights, not only the negative right of protection against discrimination. The states where Deaf live, i.e. all states in the world, thus do have positive obligations towards the Deaf as a linguistic minority.

In addition, the Deaf can of course also be seen as a group with a handicap, if they so choose, but whether they choose this or not has no consequences for their minority status: they ARE national linguistic minorities.

2.4. Deconstructing the arguments: are Sign languages minority languages? A 'regional or minority language' for the purposes of the European Charter requires that this language be

'different from the official language(s) of the State; it does not include either dialects of the official language(s) of the State or the languages of migrants' (Article 1(a)ii).

As we remember, Mr. Albanese did not think that Sign languages were different from the official languages because 'Sign Languages are means of communication within any language' (Krausneker 1998: 22; emphasis added). In April 2000 the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rejecting the demand by the Danish Association of the Deaf that Sign language be included when Denmark ratifies the Charter, quoted Council of Europe's legal department and argued that Sign Language did not fulfill the criteria for being a minority language; it is a 'means of communication' (kommunikationsmiddel) rather than a (historical) language, also because the Danish Deaf use the Danish language in its written form as their written language. Here we can recognize McCullough's argument too.

Firstly, Sign languages are completely independent languages and have nothing to do with the official (or other) oral languages of the countries where they exist. Mr. Albanese may be thinking of Signed languages or Manual Sign Codes like Signed Swedish, Signed English, Signed German, etc, but these are NOT Sign languages, only manually coded oral languages. Secondly, ALL languages, written, spoken and signed, are 'means of communication', even if there are other means of communication too, like pictures, dress, jewelry, and so on. Using visual signs rather than oral signs as a means of communication does not make a language less of a language. Thirdly, Sign languages are historical languages in the same way as oral languages are, and some of them may have a longer pedigree than many oral languages. And finally, the Danish Deaf using 'the Danish language in its written form as their written language', parallels what practically every Deaf community in the world does, even the ones who have been accorded official minority status by the states they live in. Most Sign languages do not as yet have writing systems that would be easily available for the Deaf. The necessary resources for reducing them to writing have not existed. If languages without (everyday use of) their own writing systems were not seen as languages, some two thirds of the world's oral languages would also "disappear", not be seen as languages, because they do not have writing systems, or, if they have them, they have only been used for very few purposes, mostly for translating (parts of) the Bible and writing a few grammars or elementary textbooks but not for everyday communication. Sign languages thus fulfil all the requirements for being minority languages for the purposes of the European Charter.

All the arguments excluding Sign languages are thus false and based on complete ignorance of languages in general and Sign languages in particular, as any researcher in the area can testify. Today important language status planning decisions are based on this type of false information, even in situations where the correct information is easily available (see, e.g. EUD Update 2001, and the World Federation of the Deaf http://www.wfdnews.org/) and has in fact been offered to the decision makers. It does not help much, even if a recognition is symbolically important, that Sign languages are mentioned in the constitutions of a dozen countries, if the rights granted are extremely vague. The most important international process today is that the UN General Assembly has, on initiatives by Mexico, established an Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities. WFD demands that "organizations of Deaf people and of people with disabilities must have an active role in drafting the convention" (Kauppinen 2003: 23). It is to be seen to what extent this will happen.

3. Case 2: "successful" attempts to guarantee some language rights. The Saami languages in Finland 3.1. Demography - a third of the Saami have Saami as their mother tongue The 10 Saami languages have altogether probably maximally 35,000 speakers, whereas there are some 75-120,000 ethnic Saami (see, e.g. Helander 1984, 1990, Huss 1999, Aikio-Puoskari 2001, Magga & Skutnabb-Kangas 2001, 2002, on various aspects of their situation). The Saami are the only indigenous peoples in the European Union. All three Saami languages spoken in Finland have a regional official status, and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages has been ratified for all three). Of the three, Inari Saami (Anár Saami) is spoken in Finland only, Skolt Saami mostly in Finland but also by a few families in Russia (and there are some Skolt families in Norway), and North Saami is spoken in 3 of the 4 countries. There are fewer than 500 ethnic Skolt Saami and equally many Inari Saami. Most of the fairly few fluent native speakers are elders, whereas younger speakers are mostly second language speakers. The official figures by language in Finland in 2002 (Population statistics) show that only 1,734 Saami have registered Saami (i.e. any of the three Saami languages) as their mother tongue in the census. These figures are self-reported, but they cannot be regarded in any way as reliable, partly because of the weak position of the Saami languages and the fact that they did not have any official status before 1992. As a result of the poor status of the Saami language and the language shift - almost complete in certain areas - many Saami are used to underestimating their knowledge in Saami. Today almost all who know a Saami language are bilingual, some even trilingual. As long as one can choose only one language as one's native language, many people will declare Finnish as their first language, because they feel that they know Finnish better than Saami or because they use Finnish more in their daily lives, i.e. they use a definition of their mother tongue by competence (the language one knows best) or function (the language one uses most), instead of the definitions which show more respect towards LHRs, namely definitions by origin (the language first learned) or internal identification (the language one identifies with) . The knowledge of Saami is often restricted to the family, reindeer herding or certain limited occasions. Especially elder people's knowledge of Saami does not cover new spheres of modern society (including writing), as they have had few possibilities of using the language other than in the private sphere, and as the school has provided an opportunity to develop one's language only in the past three decades. Other statistics, prepared by the Election Committee of the Saami Parliament (http://www.samediggi.fi/) for the Saami elections held every four years show that altogether 2,424 persons (32.3% of the total of 7,502 Saami) declared Saami as their native language in 1999 (1,739 North, 299 Inari and 386 Skolt Saami, see Figure 1), while 3,815 ethnic Saami (here = those entitled to vote in the Saami Parliament elections - for definitions, see the Saami Parliament website above) declared Finnish as their mother tongue). Apparently many of those who are entitled to vote in the Saami elections have also here "chosen" Finnish as the proper alternative since one is not allowed to declare two mother tongues, an alternative that would be relevant for not only the Saami but many others too, including the national minority Finland Swedes, many Sign language users, immigrant minorities, and children from families where the parents have different mother tongues. Both of us would, for instance, use this alternative if it existed, but for completely different reasons and with different linguistic histories. Probably the high number of people who chose the alternative "do not know" (1,263 persons in 1999) is a sign of the fact that it is hard to choose between Saami and Finnish.

Figure 1. Saami in Finland/ Language groups in 1999

Figure2. Saami in Finland/ Language groups in 1970-1999

The statistics of the Saami Parliament's Election Committee show both alarming and interesting data: 1. Though the number of Saami has increased notably - almost doubled since 1970, see Figure 2 - the number of those who declare Saami as their first language has decreased for all three Saami languages spoken in Finland. Correspondingly, the number of those Saami giving Finnish as their native language has increased by a thousand in the past two decades; 2. About 40% of the Saami population of Finland live outside the traditional Saami area, the Saami Homeland, either in Finland (see Lindgren 2000) or abroad. Of this population, only about 1/6 declare one of the three Saami languages as their native language; 3/4 register Finnish as their first language. 3. The Saami population has started to decrease clearly in Utsjoki, the only municipality in Finland where the Saami are a majority. However, about 3/4 of the Saami in Utsjoki still declare Saami as their native language; 4. More than anywhere else, the number of Saami has gone up in Inari, probably because Inari has several Saami institutions, which provide jobs for the Saami-speaking population. Inari is the only municipality in Finland where all three Saami languages are spoken, and these languages have almost equal numbers of speakers (North Saami 334, Inari Saami 228 and Skolt Saami 255); 5. The statistics show clearly the trend, which all the sparsely populated areas of Finland are facing today: emigration from the remote villages and peripheral areas has increased dramatically since the mid-1990s. In the past seven years, Utsjoki has lost more then 10% of its population, and it is reasonable to assume that most of these people have been Saami, and those who leave are often families with children. The number of pupils learning Saami and learning through Saami has lately decreased to the level of the late 1980s. When children move away from the Saami Homeland, they are very often no longer provided with teaching through the medium of Saami, or even the teaching of Saami as a subject (more details about teaching and number of pupils are presented below).

The Saami are the only indigenous peoples in the European Union, and the Finnish Saami are representative of the world's indigenous peoples in terms of the small numbers, and the many worries about the multiple threats towards their languages. But they are not representative in that they do have many more rights, including language rights, than most of their indigenous sisters and brothers. In this sense, their attempts to get guaranteed language rights have been "successful. Before we ask if this is enough, and how it has influenced today's language maintenance and revitalisation trends, we present a very short version of some of these rights (for more details, see Aikio-Puoskari 2001, Aikio-Puoskari & Pentikäinen 2001, and Aikio-Puoskari & Skutnabb-Kangas, in press).

3.2. How does the present legislation guarantee Saami the right to use their language? 3.2.1. General protection The Saami Language Act has been in effect in Finland for 11 years, since 1992, and during this time, considerable changes have taken place in the legal situation of the Saami, above all as a result of the 1995 and 1999 constitutional amendments (SSK 1995/969, SSK 1995/973 and SSK 1999/731) and the founding of the Saami Parliament (SSK 1995/974). The position of the teaching of Saami and teaching through the medium of Saami have also been strengthened in educational legislation (in the latest reforms of educational laws, SSK 1998/628, 1998/629, 1998/630 and 1998/1186). In addition, the ecclesiastical law, the law on children's day-care, the library law and the law on the broadcasting by the national broadcasting company YLE (SSK 1993/1054, SSK 1981/875, SSK 1998/904 and SSK 1993/1380) require that the Saami-speaking population receives services in Saami; thus, these laws include more far-reaching obligations than the Saami Language Act itself. As we have already mentioned, the language law mainly guarantees the Saami a right to use their native language with authorities and to obtain texts from the authorities in Saami. However, there are serious shortcomings in the implementation of each of these laws. Despite the provision of the ecclesiastical law, not all the parishes in the Saami Homeland have Saami-speaking personnel. The plan to change the parishes into bilingual ones is still only a plan: at the moment, all the parishes in the Saami Homeland are monolingual. We must also note that although the Orthodox religion is an important part of the heritage and culture of the Skolt Saami, the Skolt Saami language has no official status in the Orthodox Church.

Providing day-care for children in Saami has turned out to be a difficult equation for municipalities. There is a shortage of almost everything: money, will and competent staff. The library law and the law on broadcasting by YLE may be the laws that work best among these special laws. With the exception of the libraries in Sodankylä, the libraries of the Saami Homeland have Saami-speaking staff. The Saami radio channel in Inari (YLE Saami Radio, see www.yle.fi/samiradio/), which puts into effect the regulations of the law on broadcasting by YLE, is an independent unit, which cooperates daily with the Saami radio channels in the neighbouring countries and participates in the production of Saami TV news. All this shows that things have advanced greatly in the past ten years. However, the Saami radio still has unsatisfactory resources in terms of its special task of also supporting and developing Saami culture and bringing together the Saami of today. We find the resources to be unsatisfactory, because, as mentioned earlier, almost 50% of the Saami population live out of reach of this broadcasting.

Advancing the language rights of the Saami and providing services in Saami in the different spheres of life has been haphazard and ad hoc in Finland, because the Government has no comprehensive Saami policy and there is no established administrative practice for dealing with these affairs (see Aikio-Puoskari & Pentikäinen 2001: 182). The Saami Parliament has several times pointed out that the Government of Finland has not adopted a comprehensive Saami policy. In this respect, things are different - once again - in Norway, where the Parliament decided, when passing the Saami Act (1987: 56) - that the Government will give a comprehensive report on its Saami policy every four years. The report shows how the Government intends to strengthen and advance the Saami language, culture and community. In addition, the Government publishes an annual, more restricted notice on Saami policy, attaching the yearly report of the Saami Parliament to it too. The first such wider report on the Government's Saami policy was given during the session 1992-1993 (St.die/st meld. Nr 52 1992-93).

3.2.2. Educational language rights Being an institution that reaches everybody, school is of great importance for the status, use and future of the Saami languages. Already in his report of 1979 (Capotorti 1979: 84/5. Use of minority languages in the school system, 493), the U.N. Rapporteur Francesco Capotorti considered the possibility of using one's native language a critical factor in determining whether groups can maintain and develop their unique cultural features and traditions and survive as a distinct population. Thus, the school plays an important role in how the race between revitalisation and language shift ends. Therefore we need to ask: Is the present school a counterforce to the current trend of language shift, or does it only enforce the shift? What kind of education would make it possible for the Saami languages to stay alive and develop? When studying the situation of the Swedish Saami schools in the late 1980s, Kenneth Hyltenstam and Mikael Svonni (1990) found that it was almost useless to teach only the language as a subject to pupils who knew very little or no Saami when starting school. The mere teaching of the language did not lead to an active knowledge of the language; it mainly had a supportive influence on the Saami identity of the pupils. The results most certainly also apply to the teaching of Saami as a subject in Finland, as the number of teaching hours is quite similar and only marginal in terms of all the teaching the pupil receives at school. Like other researchers of bilingualism, Svonni and Hyltenstam find it necessary to increase learning through the medium of Saami. For example, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas has argued thoroughly why children belonging to linguistic minorities should be taught through the medium of in the language which has a weaker status in society and which has, in other respects, less possibilities of advancing to a high formal level (e.g. 1995).

The Saami languages have been taken into consideration in the educational legislation of Finland since the early 1970s, that is, since the founding of the comprehensive school system. The way from the first statute on the comprehensive school (SSK 1970/443, § 20) - which stated that the lower secondary schools can arrange an optional course in the "Lapp language" to "Lapp-speaking" pupils - to the present legislation has been tangled and winding. "Driving" the teaching of Saami and teaching through the medium of Saami into laws and financing criteria has been like building a jigsaw puzzle. Every time we have found two new pieces, one of the old ones has fallen off. The legislation was last revised in 1998, when there was a reform of the whole Finnish school legislation from regulations on school activities to financing regulations (see above). The regulations concerning Saami in the present legislation: a. make it possible to use Saami as a teaching language in comprehensive schools, upper secondary schools and vocational schools; b. make it possible to teach Saami as the native language and as a foreign language in comprehensive schools, upper secondary schools and vocational schools; c. oblige the municipalities of the Saami Homeland to provide the basic schooling (meaning the 9 years of comprehensive school) of Saami-speaking pupils "mainly" through the medium of Saami, and d. oblige the schools to prepare a separate curriculum for the teaching that is provided through the medium of Saami. In the matriculation exam, one can have the Saami language as one's native language or as a foreign language. So far, this has only applied to North Saami and Inari Saami. In spite of numerous proposals, it has not been possible to take a matriculation exam in Skolt Saami. The most important among the 1999 regulations is the one on the financing of teaching: the municipalities of the Saami Homeland are provided with more or less 100% financing for the salary costs of teaching through the medium of Saami and the teaching of Saami. Until 2003, municipalities were provided this financing only if the average size of the groups taking part in such teaching was five (5). The number was small, but in an area where distances are long, the schools are far away from each other and the total number of pupils decreases because of emigration, even five was too many. At the end of 2002, the Council of State changed the regulation so that the average group size of three (3) pupils in a municipality is enough to fulfill the criteria for this financing (VN 11.12.2002). Another piece that had fallen off was fitted in. However, this does not reverse the trend of emigration and the prognosis of the decreasing numbers of school children.

For a long time, education has been developed in an atmosphere of optimism. Especially in the 1980s, when Finland was going through a period of economic growth, the education of the Saami was enhanced in many ways. In the late 1990s, this education was undermined by the weakening of the economic situation of the municipalities; this became one of the most important reasons for creating a system of special financing. As a whole, there are still many things to do to improve the educational situation: - Although the law does not forbid municipalities from providing teaching through the medium of Saami and the teaching of the Saami language outside the Saami Homeland, there are many difficulties in arranging such education. One of them is created by the regulation, which restricts the financing to the Saami Homeland. Despite the unyielding efforts of parents, it is not always possible to get this education going. The attitude of the school authorities in both urban and rural areas outside the Saami Homeland towards the Saami language is one of amazement, confusion and sometimes even opposition; - In the Saami Homeland, slotting the Saami language into the stiff language programme of the Finnish school system continuously creates difficulties; - There is still a shortage of the necessities for teaching, such as specialized teachers who have received a good education in their own language, or high-quality learning materials; - There is no national, integrated curriculum for teaching through the medium of Saami, although propositions demanding such a document have repeatedly been submitted to the educational authorities. In fact, the Saami Parliament has claimed the right to prepare a separate national curriculum for the teaching of Saami pupils. Such a document would enable the Saami themselves to define the goals and content of the teaching of their children and young people. This would also enable the Saami Parliament to realize the self-government that has been granted to it - through the constitution - in matters concerning the Saami language and culture. So far, this self-government is, to a great extent, only a principle without real content.

Here, we again need to compare the situation with that of Norway, where the educational legislation follows principles that are quite unlike the ones applied in Finland. In terms of the education of the Saami, the law is based on the individual's right to learn his/her native language and to learn through it. In Finland, the law has been formulated in a different way. In the Saami Homeland, the provider of education is obliged to arrange teaching through the medium of Saami for the Saami-speaking pupils. Outside the Saami Homeland, schools are not even obliged to provide Saami pupils with the teaching of their native language as a subject.

Figure 3. Teaching through the medium of Saami and the teaching of Saami (as a subject) in comprehensive and upper secondary schools in Finland/ Number of pupils/students

Figure 4. Teaching through the medium of Saami (instruction language) in comprehensive and upper secondary schools in Finland/ Number of pupils/students

Statistics on teaching (Figures 3 and 4) never tell the whole truth, but they show in which direction the education is heading. As the school is not an autonomic island in society, it is affected by the storm and calm in the environment. The statistics tell about the numbers of students participating in teaching in Saami and the teaching of Saami as a subject, but they tell nothing about the level and the organization of teaching. From these numbers, we can see that several pieces of the "jigsaw puzzle" have been fitted into their right places in the 1980s and as late as the 1990s. At a few points, we see clearly how the attitudes of the environment and the conflicts concerning Saami issues that have lately grown more intense have affected the volume of teaching. Maybe it was the strong local atmosphere against the Saami that almost brought the Saami education to an end in the schools of Enontekiö in the early 1990s. The intense conflicts raging around the Saami issues may also be a reason for the latest decrease in the number of pupils.

However, one can also discern a positive development in the statistics. There has been a decrease in teaching Saami as a subject but a clear increase in the number of pupils learning through Saami. In addition to the number of pupils, the number of such teaching hours - that is, the proportion of teaching through the medium of Saami to all teaching - is also increasing. Although the numbers are still low, we are heading in the right direction in the race between revitalisation and language shift. Finally, we must point out how crucial parents are for the future of the language when they make decisions about which language to speak to their children at home and through the medium of which language their children are taught in school - if they live in the area where such a choice is possible. The parents' decisions are naturally linked with their views on the importance and usefulness of the Saami language. Only naive idealists will persistently go on passing down to new generations a language, which has no practical value in the linguistic market. Therefore, the status of the Saami language in schools is closely connected with its general status in society, with the possibilities of using it in the various fields of modern society and with whether Saami is of use in the labour market (see Magga & Skutnabb-Kangas 2001). At least for the past decade, the development of the Saami community has provided an increasing number of job opportunities for those who know a Saami language.

3.3. Revitalisation - impact of LHRS?

Satu Moshnikoff (2002a, b) tells in two articles about the status and use of Skolt Saami: a strong revitalisation has taken place since the 1990s. Earlier people with Skolt Saami background were ashamed of their origins, language and culture and tried to hide them. Today there is a Skolt Saami language nest and the language is both used as a medium and taught as a subject in school. Young people are eager to learn aspects of culture and have drawn elders into their activities as teachers. Almost 10 books were published in Skolt in 2000 and 2001; it is used in the Lapland parish of the orthodox church of Finland, and some parts of the New Testament have been translated. Media use of Skolt Saami is negligible. A language nest was started already in 1993, but it continued only half a year; there was no money. In 1997 it started again, this time with European Union support. The 17 Skolt children in the language nest in the autumn 2001 were all second language speakers. The cultural content in the language nests is extremely important; there are long and short excursions, the children participate in and learn about reindeer herding, fishing, traditional foods, etc. and parents and elders participate maximally (Moshnikoff, 2000a, b).

The situation of Inari Saami is similar. Most of the young people who speak the language are second language speakers; even so, a language nest has been started, and one of the children, around 2 years old when this article appears, is the first native language speaker of Inari Saami for more than 20 years, with parents whose dominant language is still Finnish but who heard Saami in their childhood and are studying it actively; the mother is one of the two professional educators in the language nest (field notes, TSK, Inari, Finland, November 2001). Over 300 of the Inari Saami are members of the Inari Saami Association. The extremely active Association publishes their own regular journal and even fiction.

One positive example of how to revive and support the development and transfer of Saami languages, identity and cultures is the project The Language and Cultural Siidas of the Saami (2001-2004), by using the traditional knowledge and other resources of elders in a genuine cultural environment and community; the project also aims to enable children to switch into Saami-speaking day care, to study through the medium of Saami at school and in vocational training later, and thus to become fully authorized and harmonious members of the Saami community. The work of the cultural siidas attempts to make it possible to restore the connection of Saami families to their own language and culture, and to assist Saami parents and the whole Saami community in using the Saami language on an every-day basis at home as well as elsewhere. Modern society tries to isolate the old from the community, preventing them from developing it. It is important for elder Saami to be able to participate in the traditional seasonal chores of the community together with the family, and to contribute to the development and passing on of their own language and culture to the younger generations. The cultural siidas allow older people to take part in and influence this process; by offering an environment where it is natural, e.g., for grandparents to start speaking Saami to their grandchildren if they have only spoken Finnish with them earlier. The siidas are also a network of social support for elder Saami where it is nice to have a cup of coffee or meet other Saami. The elder Saami who participate, get in turn practical help from the families and personnel of the siidas, for example in chopping wood or cleaning the yard. In the siidas, elder people are appreciated and respected. The long-term objective is to provide the Saami with the opportunity of existing - now and in the future - as a nation that leads its own life on its own terms, based on its own language, culture and way of life without becoming assimilated to the main population. In Vuotso (Ulla Aikio-Puoskari's native village) where the language shift already seemed to have been completed, the project has participated in a strong revitalization. Most of the children study Saami as a subject and in the autumn of 2003 the first class started using Saami as a medium of education. In Norway and Sweden, too, there are, in addition to North Saami, two smaller Saami languages that are used in teaching, media and literature. They are Lule Saami and South Saami, the situation of which corresponds to that of Inari and Skolt Saami; in both countries, their core areas were left outside the actual administrative areas of the Saami language - that is, without any linguistic rights - when the Saami Language Acts were passed (in Norway in 1990, in Sweden in 1999). Few students are taught in these languages. In Norway, the teaching of Lule Saami as the native language (first language) has increased slightly, whereas South Saami has lately only been taught as a foreign language (2nd language). The position of Lule Saami has, to some extent, improved recently as a result of the work of active parents on the language and the founding of a Saami language centre (Árran) in Tysfjord, the core area of the Saami in the region. The language centre is the site of many Saami activities, and it also includes a language nest (see Huss 1999). Despite recent revitalizing activities, all these Saami languages must be considered endangered.

4. Concluding remarks

What similarities and differences are there between the two groups, and can these explain why one has been more successful than the other in getting (some) LHRs? We list a few factors: - The Saami are numerically a very small group, but they are part of a larger entity, all indigenous peoples of the world. All of them have their own languages (some 4-5,000 of the world's spoken languages are indigenous). The Deaf in any country are numerically very small groups, but they are part of a larger entity, all Deaf (and Signing) people of the world. Most of them have their own languages(there may be as many Sign languages in the world as spoken languages - nobody knows). The smaller the group, the more difficult to get LHRs? - The Saami are extremely well organised, with many associations and with their own Parliaments (with an advisory function) in 3 countries (but the fact that they live in 4 countries, with different official languages, bureacracies, educational systems, etc., makes cooperation more difficult). Some other indigenous peoples are well organised too, especially in the Americas; many are not, and indigenous peoples' regional and international organisations are fairly weak and suffer from lack of financial resources (e.g. the United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues (see http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/pfii/) - with a Saami Chairperson, Ole Henrik Magga, has lots of symbolic status but the material resources at the disposal of this body, representing thousands of peoples and languages, mean that each full-time employee would need to know everything about the conditions of not only tens or hundreds but a thousand peoples, i.e. a completely impossible situation. The Deaf are extremely well organised in the Nordic countries but have no representation in most of the state bodies and no Parliaments. Some other Deaf people are well organised too; most are not. There are regional and international organisations, and the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD, established in 1951) has B-status in the UN system and is, just like the Indigenous Forum, represented in several of its groupings (ECOSOC, UNESCO, ILO, WHO, etc.). WFD does impressive work, despite very few material resources (including only 2 full-time staff!). The Deaf in the Nordic countries have more rights than the Deaf in most other ccountries in the world - still, not even the Nordic countries have not ratified the European Charter for Sign languages. The WFD seems to be fairly successfull internationally; this can partly be explained by the fact that the Deaf can be seen at the same time as a "handicap" group and as a linguistic minority group. - The Saami have their own Nordic institute of higher learning, Allaskuvla (see http://www.samiskhs.no/) which teaches mainly through the medium of North Saami. Saami teachers, pre-school teachers and journalists can be trained there through the medium of Saami, and there are many courses in other Saami areas. The Deaf have only one university, Gallaudet, in Washington D.C. (see http://www.gallaudet.edu/) which teaches mainly through the medium of American Sign language. Norway and Finland have a fullfledged teacher training through the medium of Sign languages - hardly any other countries have anything similar. On the other hand, - The Saami are (despite the fact that close to half of them live outside their Home Territories) territorially based peoples, whereas the Deaf are completely dispersed (despite a few villages where everybody signs). Territorial populations have in general more rights than non-territorial populations. - The Saami do, as an indigenous people, have a right to self-determination, according to international law; the Deaf do not. Many states fear minority groups who strive towards some kind of autonomy; from that point of view even linguistic and cultural rights might be more difficult to get for them because a belief in the nation-state ideology might make states fear that these group want a state of their own. On the other hand, the Deaf cannot be seen as a threat towards the integrity and sovereignty of any state - it should be easier for them to get rights. - The Saami have common ancestry (quite irrespective of how mythical this ancestry is); they are a hereditary group. Some 90-95% of Deaf children are born to hearing parents; it is only a very small minority of Deaf families that carry the continuity. Many Deaf people may only learn Sign language in school, or later in life; the continuation and sharing of experience and struggle has to be recreated for each generation. It should be easier for a hereditary group to develop their strategies for a struggle for rights. - The Saami may assimilate "successfully" in the majority population in each country, at least after a few generations, also linguistically; the majority language can become their mother tongue. Regardless of cochlear implants, lip-reading and speech skills and "perfect" reading and writing skills in a majority language, a deaf person can never express herself fully in any other language except Sign language. Cochlear implants do not turn deaf people into well-hearing people. The possibility of full assimilation might weaken the struggle for LHRs for some Saami while the lack of this possibility could strengthen the demands and spread them to the whole Deaf population.. As we can see from this list of only some factors that might influence the outcomes of struggles for communication rights, including LHRs, there are both similarities and differences between the two groups. Likewise, the outcomes have not always followed what we might expect from commonly made generalisations. There are still many more questions than answers, both theoretically, and in practice. We are far from understanding under what circumstances groups succeed better or worse in their struggles for LHRs. But it is clear that full LHRs are one of the necessary components in the struggles to maintain and develop minority languages - but they are certainly not sufficient. If the parent generation does not (or is not able to, because of earlier assimilation, in the case of the Saami, or because the biological parents do not know Sign language and signing preschools, schools and Deaf associations are not drawn in fully and early enough) transfer the language and culture to the next generation, the languages cannot be learned, maintained, and/or revitalised. If there are not enough material and non-material resources for this, very few if any parents can manage in this transfer. If the languages have no (symbolic AND market) value and/or cannot be used on the labour market and in various institutions, parents' wishes alone cannot keep a language alive for long. Languages are vital for both identity and communication (non-instrumental and instrumental rights, Rubio-Marín 2003) - one aspect without the other does not make sense. LHRs alone are no panacea, but they are one of the necessary and important starting points for dynamic and changing but secure identities and for full societal participation. It is lousy economics if a state, by refusing to grant LHRs, cuts off sections of its citizens from fully realising their potential and contributing to the common good.

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