On the use of languages
The creation of a working group on the use of languages within ICOM was
decided by the Executive Council during its 99th Session held in Barcelona
in July 2001,
· To investigate and make concrete recommendations on the use of
languages in ICOM’s meetings.
· To evaluate the financial consequences of the use of spanish as a
third “official” or “working” language. The financial consequences will
take into account the activities and the global working of our Organisation.
· To examine possibilities to recruit on a short or medium term a
minimum of trilingual members of personnel with a view to reinforcing the
current personnel of the Secretariat in order to assist in the drafting of
documents as well as communicating with members of ICOM anxious to get
information from the Secretariat through the phone. Estimate the cost of
this operation.
· To think about the validity of the use of the other languages
“within any types of international meetings organised by ICOM in order to
ensure that any regions thoughout the world participate in the work of the
Organisation”.
The following preliminary report was written by Giovanni Pinna, Member of
the Executive Council, charged, together with Pascal Makambila, of the
Working Group on the use of Languages.
The report is now sent to ICOM Members via ICOM List. The aims is to
collect informations concerning the different problems discussed in the
Report, and particularly on:
- the use of local languages by National Committees and respect
for linguistic minorities,
- the use of both official languages and local languages at
international meetings,
Preliminary Report
Every language is a living museum, a monument to the culture that has made
use of it
(D. Nettle and S. Romaine, Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's
Languages)
A - Foreword
The use of languages within a multicultural and multilingual organisation
like ICOM gives rise to a number of problems due to the fact that it
involves the financial, organisational and cultural aspects of the association.
In particular, as far as the cultural aspect is concerned, the two main
objectives of ICOM - the protection of cultural heritage, even immaterial,
and technical-cultural collaboration between members - as well as the need
for a vast flow of information, demand careful thought on the use of languages.
The diversity of languages is the cultural property of humankind; every
language should be protected and defended and, as far as possible,
stimulated in everyday life. At the same time, access to information is
the inalienable right of every human being.
ICOM is therefore faced with a conflicting position between two apparently
irreconcilable demands: the need for different nations and groups of mother
tongues to communicate by using a common language, and a moral obligation
to protect languages as part of the world cultural heritage. Furthermore,
ICOM needs to ensure that linguistic barriers do not hinder participation
in the activities of the organisation.
ICOM bears great responsibility with respect to the use of languages
because its choice may determine the official language of museum
professionals and promote its dissemination.
B - The Goal and Organisation of the Working Group
The task of the Working Group on the use of languages should be to draw up
a proposal on the use of languages within ICOM that will improve its
communication capacities, protect languages and ensure that the
organisation is within the easy reach of everyone. At the same time, it
will have to carefully consider how its choices may effect the budget of
ICOM, as well as its available human resources, the operational
capabilities of the National and International Committees, and financial
resources. The final objective will be to prepare a Language Chart.
During the first phase of the work, it will be necessary to collect
information on the use of languages in all the sectors of ICOM; it will
therefore be necessary to acquire further knowledge on:
* the use of local languages by National Committees and respect for
linguistic minorities,
* the use of local languages for activities organised by the Secretariat,
* the use of both official languages and local languages at
international meetings,
* the languages used in ICOM publications (official and local languages),
* the production of dictionaries by International Committees, and
other eventual needs.
The working group is composed of the following ten members:
Pascal Makambila (EC Member)
Giovanni Pinna (EC Member)
Alda Costa
An Laishun
Ersy Philipopoulou-Michailidou
Françoise Dumont
Gurgen Grigorian
Hildegard Vieregg
Luis Repetto
Siam Kim
Slim Khosrof
In view of the fact that certain aspects relating to the use of
languages involve the National and International Committees, as well as the
Regional Organisations, it is important for the working group on languages
to work in close liaison with the working groups responsible for these
sectors of ICOM.
C - The Current Situation
At present, the linguistic situation within ICOM is as follows:
1 - The official languages of ICOM
According to Article 4 of the Statutes: 1. English and French are
the official languages of ICOM; each of them has equal status and can be
used by a member at any international meeting of ICOM. 2. The General
Assembly can use other official languages provided the relevant expenses
are borne by the members.
The 20th General Assembly (Barcelona 2001) adopted Spanish as the
third official language of ICOM.
The statutes do not distinguish between official languages and
working languages.
According to statistics updated in 1996, the thirteen most spoken
languages in the world, in relation to the world population, are the
following (Nettle and Romaine 2000):
15% Chinese, Mandarin 2.1% Japanese
5.4% English 1.6% German
4.5% Spanish 1.3% Chinese, Wu
3.2% Bengali 1.2% Javanese
3% Hindi 1.2% Korean
2.8% Portuguese 1.1% French
2.8% Russian
According to these statistics, of the three official languages of
ICOM, English is the second most widespread language, Spanish is in the
third position and French in the thirteenth. Thus, the decision to choose
English, French and Spanish as the official languages was not taken in
relation to the number of people who speak them but were based on different
criteria. English is by far the most dominant language in terms of
politics, economics, the sciences and culture, especially since the Second
World War (English is the official language of more than 60 of the 185
countries recognised by the United Nations). French benefits from the
reputation it enjoyed up to the beginning of the 20th century as the
language of culture and diplomacy (it should be noted that the official
publications of the International Office of Museums of the League of
Nations were written in French). And finally, the adoption of Spanish
reflects recognition not only of its widespread use but also the particular
attention paid by Spanish-speaking populations on the development of
museums and their related professions, as well as the protection of
cultural heritage.
Everything seems to indicate that English, French and Spanish were
chosen as official languages because they were associated with cultural
centres that have been, are, or will continue to be, dominant in ICOM's
main spheres of interest. As for their relationship with ICOM (and,
consequently, their importance within the association), they can be defined
as «metropolitan languages» in contrast to «peripheral languages», as in
the case of Russian, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese or Greek, for example.
This highlights the fact that the peripheral or central role of a language
is not due to the language itself or to the number of people using it, but
to the differences between the economies, and the cultural economies, of
the people who speak it.
2 - The languages used by the Secretariat
(Extract from the Report of the Secretary General of 15 March 2001 on the
adoption of Spanish as the third official language)
1. Of ICOM's Secretariat staff of thirteen all are bilingual in
French and English and two people speak Spanish in addition to French and
English. Other languages spoken at the Secretariat: German, Italian
andother languages depending on where people originally came from.
2. Working documents for the Executive Council are in English and
French. It sometimes happens that documents are in English only.
3. Simultaneous translation during the Executive Council meetings
is available in English and French. The last three meetings were
exceptional because Spanish was made available by ICOM 2001. The working
sessions of the Executive Council have no simultaneous translation and are
mostly in English.
4. The working documents for the Advisory Committee are in English and French.
5. Simultaneous translation during the Advisory Committee meetings
is available in English and French, including the separate meetings of the
National and International Committees.
6. The financial documents are all in English and French.
7. Official documents for members (Membership Brochure, Handbook
of Administrative Procedures, For More Information and yearly membership
Circulars) are all in English and French
8. Official messages from ICOM's leading bodies to its members,
partners or others are in English and French.
9. ICOM's basic documents "Code of Ethics" and "Statutes" are in
English, French, Spanish and Arabic. Various National Committees in various
languages translated the "Code of Ethics".
10. Daily contact with members by mail, telephone, fax or e-mail
is approximately for 80% in English, 16 % in French, 3% in Spanish and 1 %
in other languages.
11. The breakdown of the active membership's language preference
at 9 February 2001 is: English: 10 060, French: 4 112, Spanish: 1 323
(As a supplementary remark: we have about 3 300 German speaking members)
Publications
12. ICOM News is in English, French and Spanish Study series is 50%
in French and 50% in English (approximately); in the next ICTOP Study
Series there will be some content in Spanish as well.
13. Special publications are mostly in English and French, however
other languages may be used for a special purpose, like Italian, Hungarian
and Czech for the "One Hundred Missing Objects, looting in Europe" or
Arabic in the "Handbook of Standards, Documenting African Collections".
Spanish has been used for (I) "One Hundred Missing Objects, looting in
Latin America", (II)for the book that resulted from the
workshops/conference on Cultural Tourism in Latin America and the
Caribbean, held in Peru and Bolivia in 2000 and (III) for "Illicit Traffic
in Latin America" as a result of a workshop in Cuenca.
Website
14. ICOM's website is in English and French, but for the "Code of
Ethics" that is also available in Spanish. The documents disseminated via
ICOM-L are in French and English.
PR
15. Press releases and press files are in English and French. In the case
of regional events other languages may be used as well.
16 The daily work in the Communication Sector is done in French
and English. Spanish is used, notably because ICOM News is also produced in
Spanish.
Special Projects
17 Language use in the Special Projects is about 50% English, 35%
French, 8% Spanish, 2% Arabic and 5% other languages.
D - Current Problems
1 - Guaranteeing communications
Guaranteeing smooth communications between members of ICOM,
whatever their culture and country of origin, is one of the principal
objectives of the Organisation. This is obviously because smooth
communications permit the cultural exchanges that are so vital if ICOM is
to fulfil its functions.
The most reliable guarantee is obtained by using an official
language that is spoken by the largest possible number of members belonging
to the association. However, the choice of an official language leads to a
certain number of significant inconveniences.
1. t gives an advantage to members whose mother tongue has been chosen as
the official language or to those who are bilingual and are therefore able
to use the official language as a second language. People who are required
to use a language that has been learned have to make greater mental efforts
and work for longer periods. They also find it difficult to express
themselves as clearly as in their mother tongue, and they risk not being
clearly understood or not being able to follow discussions closely. In
discussing the ability to read and write quickly, De Saussure has
demonstrated that for those with a perfect command of a language, their
writing moves from the phonetic to the ideographic. This implies that
words are read as ideographic signs and not as a succession of phonetic
signs. People with a good command of a language can therefore read much
faster than individuals who only have a phonetic knowledge.
2. very language is the expression of a culture. People who are obliged to
express themselves in a language that is not their own see their culture
slipping into the culture of the other. This is why the adoption of a
single official language tends to erase cultural differences. This is the
premise of the linguistic theory known as relativist, so dear to Humboldt
and Heidegger, among others, who believe that the mind is inseparable from
the language.
3. it raises a linguistic barrier against those who are able to speak and
understand the single language adopted, a barrier that is recurs in the
participation of the association as a whole. An example of this is
provided by ICOM itself. One of the criteria for selecting participants in
the workshop «The Use of New Technologies for Museums» (Willemstad,
Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles, 22-25 August 2001), organised by the
Secretariat, was fluency in English, which obviously excluded members
speaking Spanish, French, Dutch, etc.
4. It imposes bilingualism as a fundamental condition for participation in
ICOM. Encouraging linguistic plurality is certainly a way of ensuring
broader communications between members of ICOM, without undermining local
identities. However, it is difficult to see what means are available to
ICOM in this area.
5. It restricts the dissemination of ICOM's activities outside the
association, among populations with an average knowledge of other
languages, or among members not belonging to ICOM and unable to speak the
single language selected by the association.
The adoption of several languages reduces the number of difficulties that
we have described exclusively from the point of view of the percentage of
people concerned, but it does not solve the problem of the linguistic
barrier and its homogenising effects on of culture. Furthermore, the
adoption of several official languages inevitably entails expenses not only
for the management of the Secretariat and organisation of meetings but also
for the production of documents.
2 - Protecting linguistic differences
Languages play an important role in the identity of communities.
We are what we speak, according to the English linguists Daniel Nettle and
Suzanne Romaine. The Maori Chief, Sir James Henare, who passed away in
1989, was fond of saying, Language is the vital force of the Maori culture
and our mana. If the language dies, as some people predict, what will we
have left? So I ask my people: who are we?. A Welsh proverb expresses a
similar notion, Heb iaith heb genedl, meaning «there is no nation without
language. Preserving languages implies preserving cultural differences and
saving the cultural autonomy of minorities. Discouraging the use of a
local language and imposing a different language from the local one are
some of the means adopted to destroy the identities of communities. The
French ethnologist Jean-Loup Amselle wrote, among the rights of minorities
there is also the one of relinquishing their culture so that the dominant
majority cannot choose in their place the type of culture or the language
they consider to be the most appropriate.
The importance of languages as components of the world cultural
heritage has been noted in many places and circumstances.
UNESCO recently refocused on the importance of protecting
linguistic diversity in its Declaration on Cultural Differences, submitted
for discussion at the 31st Session of the General Conference (October
2001). Article 5 of this Declaration states, Cultural rights are an
integral part of human rights. The flourishing of creative diversity
requires the full implementation of cultural rights as defined in Article
27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in Articles 13 and 15
of the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights. All persons should therefore be able to express themselves and to
create and disseminate their work in the language of their choice, and
particularly in their mother tongue.
In the same document, UNESCO proposes to pursue objectives
relating to the rights to cultural diversity:
*safeguarding the linguistic heritage of humanity and giving support to
expression, creation and dissemination in the greatest possible number of
languages (point 5)
*encouraging linguistic diversity at all levels of education (point 6)
ICOM is also involved in the protection of linguistic differences. The
fifth point cited by the Programme Committee and included in the Report
submitted to ICOM's 20th General Assembly says: One of the modes of
expression of a culture is its language. However, the disappearance and
transformation of numerous languages is in the process of being
accelerated. Everyone should recognise and tackle the fundamental threat
(constituted by the disappearance of language diversity) to common heritage
and to culture.
The need to work towards protecting linguistic diversity is therefore a
duty that ICOM cannot avoid.
E - Proposals
In order to ensure smooth communications within ICOM and at the same time
safeguard and protect linguistic diversity, without creating a financial
burden on the association, it is necessary to proceed in the following
directions.
1 - A distinction between official languages and working languages
In international organisations there is usually a clear
distinction between official languages and working languages. The European
Community has eleven official languages (the languages of its twelve Member
States) and three working languages (English, French and German), while the
United Nations has six official languages and two working languages.
The difference between official languages and working languages
lies mainly in the fact that the former must be used in documents and at
official meetings (plenary sessions, commissions, etc) while the latter are
used in preparatory documents and in the internal proceedings of the
organisation.
As has been pointed out, the ICOM Statutes do not make provisions
for working languages in addition to the official languages, and according
to the Secretary General's Report, the identification between working
languages and official languages is evident.
In view of the fact that working languages are also official
languages, it would appear that a new official language - as in the case of
Spanish - leads to higher management expenses and an additional workload
for the Secretariat, as stressed by the Secretary General in the
above-mentioned Report. It should be noted that in terms of simultaneous
translation, moving from two to three languages results in an increase in
language combinations from two to six.
It is therefore necessary to separate official languages from working
languages within ICOM.
This would make it possible to retain English and French as
working languages, which would not create an additional burden on the
budget and organisation of the Secretariat or its available human
resources. At the same time, the impact of adopting three instead of two
official languages on the financial and human resources of ICOM would
probably only be insignificant. Finally, a distinction between official
languages and working languages would make it possible to adopt other
official languages in the future, if this should turn out to be appropriate.
Official languages
In the case of ICOM, the use of three official languages -
English, French and Spanish - should be restricted to meetings of the
Advisory Committee, the discussions of the General Assembly, and the
plenary sessions of the General Conference. Only documents considered to
be fundamental should be translated into the three languages: the Statutes,
the Code of Ethics, the house organ (ICOM News), the triennial Report of
Activities, the Welcome Brochure for Members, the ICOM web site, etc.
In the case of the General Assembly and the General Conference
plenary session, it is in any event desirable that the language (or
languages) of the host country should be included with the official languages.
Working languages
English and French, considered as working languages, should be
used (together or separately) for the internal documents of the
Secretariat, verbatim reports, during meetings of the working groups and in
the documents produced by these bodies, etc.
Other languages
The use of unofficial or working languages (Russian, Arabic,
Portuguese, Italian, etc) should be possible for the proceedings and
publications relating to a specific linguistic segment of ICOM and which
therefore do not concern ICOM as a whole.
2 - Possible action to guarantee smooth communications, accessibility and
the protection of linguistic diversity
The adoption of three official languages and two working languages
guarantees smooth communications between most members within ICOM, but not
between all members because some of them are unable to understand or
express themselves fluently in one of the official or working
languages. It is necessary for ICOM to ensure that these persons have
access to the contents, values and activities of the association. ICOM
cannot, for reasons connected with language, exclude even a fraction of
museum professionals from international debates on museums, museology and
heritage, or deprive these debates of the intellectual and professional
contributions of these experts.
Smooth communications, accessibility and the protection of
linguistic diversity can be encouraged by inviting the National and
International Committees to work in this direction.
Possible action by National Committees
National Committees should play an important role in improving the
accessibility of ICOM, removing linguistic barriers and at the same time
protecting local languages. They would be responsible for disseminating
information on ICOM at the local level and in the local languages.
With this objective in mind, National Committees should be
requested to use local languages for their activities and to take into
account the linguistic differences existing within the country they
represent (for example, Castilian, Catalan and Basque in the case of
Spain), to avoid causing splits within the national community.
They should undertake to translate into the local language and
then circulate the basic ICOM documents (Statutes, Code of Ethics,
Presentation Brochure of ICOM, resolutions, programme documents, etc, as
well as publications such as the History of ICOM, and documents of general
interest relating to the activities and goals of ICOM, including the 1979
UNESCO Convention and the 1998 Unidroit Convention on Illicit Traffic. They
should also cover the documents and publications of the International
Committees that are considered to be of great scientific or general
interest, such as the Thesaurus, which André Desvallée is in the process of
compiling for ICOFOM, and ICOM publications that are particularly useful
for the country in question, for example, the planned manual on the
Prevention of Natural Disasters and the volumes in the series «One Hundred
Missing Objects». As far as the latter are concerned, I personally believe
that it would be more effective to distribute them to the actual victims of
looting rather than the police, and that a translation into the local
languages is indispensable. Resources for these activities will therefore
have to be found in the areas concerned by concluding agreements with the
governments.
By carrying out these activities, the National Committees should
be able to provide more than management services for members. They should
serve as «genuine promotion, information and liaison agencies» capable of
linking the local professional communities with the entire organisation and
of playing a useful role in protecting local heritage, both material and
immaterial.
Possible action by International Committees
Since International Committees bring together specialists from all
over the world, they are obliged to work in a common language, but not
necessarily to use the three official languages. It would be desirable if
they were to use one or both of the working languages for their working
documents, at their official meetings and for scientific publications. It
would also be useful to use the local languages, in addition to a working
language, at scientific meetings to ensure maximum accessibility and to
permit access to peripheral languages. If a local language were to be
used, arrangements would have to be made for simultaneous translation into
the working language. The required funds should not be the responsibility
of ICOM but should either come from the country in question or from the
International Committee.
Scientific publications produced by the International Committees,
such as the Study Series, do not have to be translated into the three
official languages. However, even though one single language may be
convenient, the simultaneous use of two working languages in the same
publication should not be excluded.
The International Committees can have an important role in
facilitating communications as well as protecting local languages by
compiling, in collaboration with the National Committees concerned,
multilingual technical dictionaries, such as the Vocabulary of Museum
Security Terms, published by the ICMS Committee, or glossaries.
The role of the ICOM Secretariat
Even though it is felt that the Secretariat documents should be
written in the two working languages (English and French), the General
Secretariat should make sure that local languages are used in addition to
one of the working languages in the events it organises. The minutes of
these meetings should also be translated into the local language and widely
circulated in the area with the collaboration of the local National
Committee. This practice was, in fact, adopted for the Workshop on the
Protection of Cultural Heritage in Southern Asia (Hanoi, Vietnam, 9-13
April 2001), Vietnamese being used as a working language along with
English. The Ministry of Culture and Information was requested to arrange
for the reports to be translated into Vietnamese.
The role of the Executive Council
The Executive Council can play an active role by encouraging
access to the values and contents of ICOM for all members. On the one
hand, it should give importance to local languages in events organised by
the National Committees, International Committees and Secretariat, and on
the other, it could invite the International Committees to produce
multilingual dictionaries on themes that would clearly serve as an
important means of communication.
Bibliography
Amselle J.L., 1990 - Logiques métisses. Anthropologie de l'identité en
Afrique et ailleurs.Èditions Payot, Paris.
Chartier R., Corsi P., 1996 - Sciences et langages en Europe. Centre
Alexandre Koyré, Paris
De Saussure F., 1922 - Cours de linguistique générale. Èditions Payot, Paris
Nettle D., Romaine S., 2000 - Vanishing Voices: the Extinction of the
World's Languages. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Hagège C., 2000 - Halte à la mort de langues. Èditions Odile Jacob,
Paris.
Giovanni Pinna
Member of the Executive Council
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