In this paper, I show how a novel treatment of speech acts can be combined with a well-known liberal argument for multiculturalism in a way that will justify claims about the preservation, protection, or accommodation of minority languages. The key to the paper is the claim that every language makes a distinctive range of speech acts possible, acts that cannot be realized by means of any other language. As a result, when a language disappears, so does a class of speech (...) acts. If we accept that our social identities are in large part constituted by the decisions we make about how to speak, language loss, then, will amount to a substantial infringement on our autonomy in a particularly important domain. (shrink)

The legal and normative openness of human rights allows for the integration of new subjects, arenas, violators, and protectors of human rights. Indigenous movements manage to use this flexibility and implement their claims within the human rights system. Yet, indigenous rights cause manifold discussions and ambiguities, all of which are related to the question of the concept of indigeneity. In spite of the endeavor for pragmatic and flexible approaches, scopes and implications of concepts of indigeneity need to be dealt with. (...) This paper discusses both scope and implications, starting from hegemonic criteria for a working definition of indigeneity. It shows how indigenous identity is inextricably linked to its non-indigenous other. Subsequently, indigenous human rights entail specific repercussions in indigeneity being a resource and an imperative. Those repercussions stem from indigeneity being simultaneously a source and target of indigenous human rights claims and from the self-referential duplication of the right to indigeneity for indigenes, respectively. The provided tools for an analysis of the ambiguities of indigenous human rights contribute to their further and more just development, implementation, and monitoring. (shrink)