Why is world shouting everywhere about sustainability but is decidedly mute on language?

In 1987, the United Nations (UN) Brundtland Commission defined sustainable development as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Subsequently, the UN carried out extensive work on sustainability, and this was translated into a Development Agenda adopted by the General Assembly in 2015. This universal action plan of unprecedented scope and significance, a “supremely ambitious transnational vision”, contained 17 interconnected goals to be achieved by 2030.

These Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, are, in the words of the UN, “the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”. They address “global challenges” which include eradicating poverty, ensuring good health and well-being, providing quality education, protecting the environment, upholding human rights, and promoting the rule of law, among others. However, languages are not explicitly mentioned, and the way in which culture is addressed remains very limited. As one author (Suzanne Romaine (2019: 41)) put it, “language is the missing link in the global debate on sustainability”.

Recognizing the significance of languages within the SDGs is not just a matter of cultural preservation but a necessary step towards ensuring equitable and effective development for all. Without linguistic diversity and the promotion of multilingualism, many communities, particularly minority, indigenous and marginalized groups, are excluded from decision-making processes and denied equal access to vital resources, and the endangerment or extinction of languages plays an enormous role in this exclusion. Language dominance and dominance by language create fundamental forms of inequality and are often at the root of the challenges for which the SDGs have been established.

The link between language and sustainable development has been the subject of scrutiny in recent years. At the forefront of the debate, the Basque Country has identified and added to its own agenda an 18th SDG relating to cultural and linguistic diversity. It is now hosting this 29th FEL to contribute to the promotion of the “missing 18th SDG” and its future adoption in the official agenda of the United Nations.

This conference will aim to explore the conceptual links between maintenance and revitalisation of endangered, minority and indigenous languages and sustainable development in different social, economic, ecological, and linguistic contexts; it will also seek to identify policy implications stemming from, and necessary to, further integration of language revitalization and sustainable development.

The conference will especially welcome contributions which deal with a number of sub-themes, including:

• The conceptualisation of the links between the maintenance and revitalisation of minority, endangered and indigenous languages and sustainable development.

1. How is language central in the success of sustainable development, by promoting ideas, concepts, ideologies about health, economic wellbeing, justice, etc./ within communities and larger contexts
2. Conversely, how does a failure to use language (s) as vehicle for the promotion of health, education, human rights, etc.,within communities leads to failure in the realisation of these concepts and goals?
3. Does a national (and/or dominant) language successfully replace EL in promoting concepts and realising material goals, and do communities succeed better with these or with their own (endangered) languages?
4. Identify alternative approaches which may best articulate the link between EL revitalisation and sustainable development and ensure the latter’s success in different social, economic, ecological and cultural-linguistic contexts.

• Experiences of community-based and public institution initiatives that integrate both agendas.

1. Do some communities knowingly use maintenance and revitalisation of their language(s) in order to reach (local, community) targets in social, political and economic development?
2. Examples of public institutions which deliberately use endangered (including minority and indigenous) languages for the purpose of guaranteeing greater success in sustainable community, local and national development.
3. Examples of community-based and public institutions’ initiatives that have successfully integrated different sustainable goals, such as promotion of health, education, human rights, etc., with the promotion of endangered languages.

• Future prospects of the 2030 Agenda and the possibility of including the linguistic and cultural issue.

1. Examples of international successes in policy-making, advocacy and promotion of the links between languages (including EL) and sustainable development. These may include noted scholarly publications, reports by UN and Civil Society Organisations, specialised and dedicated UN panels and commissions including findings by Special Procedures (Special Rapporteurs) NGO enquiries.
2. Examples of campaigns (national or international) aimed at promoting knowledge of the link between language maintenance and revitalisation (M & R) and sustainable development, or of initiatives which reach the same goal in more indirect ways.
3. Examples of impediments to the understanding and promotion of the link between language and sustainable development. These may include insufficient understanding and promotion of sustainable development in general and of language diversity
4. Examples of deliberate and/or political and other impediments to the understanding and promotion of the link between language (M & R) and sustainable development. These may include national policies aimed at, or with the effect of, marginalising or repressing endangered, minority and/or indigenous languages.
5. Examples of cases where such impediments have proven to limit or jeopardise sustainable development. Examples of opposite process.

• Designing SDG 18. Proposal for a workable UN programme and document

1. Importance of Mother Language in learning and contributing to social development. Examples from international programmes. Role of UNESCO and other international institutions
2. Measures aimed at maintenance and revitalisation of endangered, minority and indigenous languages
3. Education in Endangered Languages. Measures to introduce learning curricula in community, minority and indigenous languages in national educational programmes
4. Measures to develop media in EL, minority and indigenous languages
5. Promotion of SDG 18. What advocacy at international level? Projects and campaigns aimed at UN General Assembly, UN agencies, regional organisations, Civil Society Organisations.

Brundtland, G.H. (1987). Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. http://www.un-documents.net/ocf-ov.htm

Fettes, M. (2023). Language and the Sustainable Development Goals: Challenges to Language Policy and Planning. In McEntee-Atalianis, L.J. & Humphrey, T. (Ed.), Language and Sustainable Development. Springer. pp. 11-24.

Garcia-Azkoaga, I., Idiazabal, I. (2021).  Garapen Iraunkorrerako Helburuei so hizkuntzen betaurrekoekin. Ekaia, 2021, 277-296. https://doi.org/10.1387/ekaia.22087

Goirigolzarri, J., Manterola, I. & Garcia-Azkoaga, I. (2025). Euskera como “lengua viva”: una contribución al debate mundial sobre los vínculos entre la sostenibilidad y la diversidad lingüística. In Roman Etxebarrieta, G. (Ed)., Ideologías, estrategias y retos en la búsqueda del encuentro comunicativo. Tirant Lo Blanc. pp. 47-63.

Gorenflo, L.J., Romaine, S., Mittermeier, R.A. & Walker-Painemilla, K. (2012). Co-occurrence of linguistic and biological diversity in biodiversity hotspots and high biodiversity wilderness areas. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109 (21): 8032-8037.

Idiazabal, I. & Pérez-Caurel, M. (2019). Linguistic diversity, minority languages and sustainable development. Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea.

Marinotti, J.P (2017). Language, the Sustainable Development Goals, and Vulnerable Populations. https://www.cal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Language-the-Sustainable-Development-Goals-and-Vulnerable-Populations-Final-Report-May-2017.pdf  

McEntee-Atalianis, L.J. & Humphrey, T. (Ed.). Language and Sustainable Development. Springer.

Romaine, S. (2019). Linguistic diversity, sustainability and multilingualism: global language justice inside the doughnut hole. In I. Idiazabal & M. Pérez Caurel (ed.), Linguistic Diversity, Minority Languages and Sustainahle Development. UPV/EHU. pp. 40-62.