City of Languages

Our beliefs

Speaking multiple languages is good for individuals and society as a whole.
It is important that society includes and promotes different languages.
Linguistic diversity makes communities stronger and more interesting. People should be able to use their language skills without fear or discrimination.

Why we need this movement

Sometimes different languages are not valued as much as they should be.
It is important for people in different fields like education and healthcare to learn about and respect different languages.
We want to create a world where people can speak the languages they want and be proud of their language skills.

How we will work

Promote the benefits of multilingualism with schools, government, and community groups.
Bring people from these fields together with academics to share ideas and promote multilingualism.

Summary

City of Languages is a group of people who think it is important to celebrate and promote different languages in our society. We believe that when people speak different languages, it makes our communities stronger and more interesting. We also believe that people should be able to use their language skills without fear or discrimination, and that we should celebrate language diversity.

Sometimes, different languages are not valued as much as they should be. We want to change that by working with schools, government, and community groups to promote the benefits of multilingualism. We want to show people how speaking more than one language can be good for individuals and for society as a whole.

We also believe that it is important for people who work in different fields, like education and healthcare, to learn about and respect different languages. We want to bring people from these fields together with academics to share ideas and make sure we are doing the best we can to promote multilingualism. Overall, we want to create a world where people can speak the languages they want, and be proud of their language skills.

Multilingual Cities Manifesto

1. We are teachers, academics, practitioners, activists and individuals committed to multilingualism. Shared language is vital to social life, but linguistic diversity also plays a central role, and both the individual and society are enriched by language skills. We call on colleagues as well as students and officials to pool our energies and expertise, to ensure that multilingualism and linguistic diversity are properly valued, developed and understood.

Why do we need a Multilingual Cities Movement?

2. Cities are usually places where languages meet, and linguistic plurality and difference are treated as normal – expected, addressed, accepted and enjoyed. Across a range of media, at work, at home and in community life, people switch, mix and blend languages, in both routine and creative ways. But many states now promote linguistic sameness in an exclusionary way, and regard linguistic diversity with hostility and fear. This suspicion inhibits the development of individuals and undermines community.

3. In a number of places, especially but not exclusively in cities, productive collaborations have developed between universities and local government, communities and organisations, committed to understanding linguistic diversity and developing multilingualism as an enhancement for society. Our movement seeks to extend these collaborations, both in- and outside cities, in a broad alliance between projects and organisations which aim to build stronger and better social relationships through openness to the opportunities and challenges that linguistic diversity involves.

Our ideas about language and multilingualism

4. Depending on how we approach it, linguistic diversity can be a source of connection and enrichment, or insecurity, division and conflict. Our uses of language, our linguistic repertoires and our communicative relationships are complicated. They are closely tied to the different situations where we find ourselves, as well as to who we are, what we do, and what we want to be.

5. Language policies and explicit beliefs about language play a very important part in society, but they sometimes take only a narrow view of what communication involves, speak of ‘deficit’, and emphasise formal standards more than persuasiveness and ‘voice’.

6. The study of language can clarify and illuminate our communicative relationships and situations. Through engagement and dialogue with the people most closely involved, linguistic study can contribute to a socially productive understanding of linguistic diversity and language use.

Linking practitioners, activists, academics and others

7. Our movement seeks to build productive and sustainable collaborations around a genuine civic partnership that is guided by the needs and goals of stakeholders in a variety of sectors. We also recognise the vital contemporary knowledge of diversity that individuals and practitioners bring from their home background and work experience, and the powerful role that such knowledge can play in developing the partnerships with organisations and groups including public service providers, community initiatives, local government, cultural institutions and the academy.

8. Practitioners in a variety of sectors – education, health care, arts and cultural institutions, community organisations, and local government – often have long and rich histories engaging with linguistic diversity, developing its potential and addressing its challenges. Their interaction with academics can be mutually beneficial, informing agendas and influencing approaches to intervention, research and teaching, producing a more accurate, up-to-date and socially relevant understanding of the linguistic consequences of cultural and demographic change, tackling inequalities and supporting creativity and participation.

9. Practitioners and activists participating in our movement agree that there is a variety of formats and institutional channels around which the principles of acknowledging, respecting and harnessing multilingualism can be protected and implemented. Participating researchers are not tied to any one theoretical tradition, but they are united in the view that academic analyses based on empirically grounded and theoretically informed research can contribute to our understanding of multilingual realities, opportunities and challenges.

Why ‘Movement’?

10. There is no single model of how individuals, organisations and institutions should collaborate to build positive and productive approaches to linguistic diversity. Different environments present different constraints and opportunities. But coming together under a common umbrella that is pluralistic and dynamic, individual initiatives can show that they are not isolated or eccentric, but part of much more general developments which provide strength and inspiration. Comparative discussion can also foster the exchange of ideas and experiences of what works, of what’s challenging, how to overcome obstacles, and how to support cooperation across locations.

11. For these reasons, we are calling for the formation of a movement – a bottom-up, organic process of networking and collaboration based around a commitment to the principles outlined in this document, connecting actors from a variety of sectors, in a variety of locations.

Next steps

12. This call offers a networking platform for initiatives that are committed to the principles of enquiry and public engagement that we have outlined, and to promoting awareness and pride in multilingualism. We invite such initiatives to add their name to this document, along with a link to their web page, with contact details and a description of their activities. We encourage those signing the document to develop links and joint activities in a variety of areas, and to continue to promote the vision set out in the document, sharing with others the ways in which they intend to do so.

For further information, and to add your signature to the call, please contact info@mcrcityoflanguages.org.