Unforgetting the UN’s Language Histories: Tracing Linguistic Culture and Policy Shifts from 1945 to 2025

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 3:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Unsettling Empire through Indigenous Histories

Abstract

This paper traces 80 years of United Nations language policy, analyzing how institutional multilingualism has reflected and reproduced colonial, geopolitical, and racialized ideologies. Using archival analysis and critical discourse analysis of General Assembly speeches, language resolutions, and policy reports, it revisits three key moments: the 1945 founding language decisions, the inclusion of Arabic in 1973, and engagement with Indigenous languages during the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032). It examines how UN multilingualism has shaped access to education, citizenship, and knowledge production globally. Framed by raciolinguistic and postcolonial theory, the paper “unforgets” erased linguistic histories and “imagines” plurilingual futures where linguistic justice challenges dominant ideologies and language justice advances equitable access across global governance, education systems, and public life.

Author

• Honorine Ntoh Yuh, University of Alabama