Dei diritti (e doveri...) linguistici

Language rights are included among the fundamental human rights and most countries worldwide nowadays have ad hoc legislations to protect their historical and territorial language minorities. The matter becomes more complicated when the languages to be protected are those of immigrants, who, on the other hand, have also the duty to learn, at an adequate level of competence and proficiency, the language of the place where they settle down. Linguistic rights and duties, that should all fall under the Latin ‘umbrella’ term of ius, are the subject of analysis in this contribution, which mainly aims at providing hints of reflection on an intricate and by no means easily solvable situation, with special reference to the Italian context. In the last paragraph a proposal is put forward to introduce in the debate the newly-coined concept of ius linguarum, as a possible ‘jimmy’ of the twisted matter.