ABSTRACT
Emancipatory policy is concerned to reduce or eliminate an illegitimate domination of some individuals or groups by others, so that justice, equality, and participation for all will become possible (Giddens, 1991, 210-212). The varying status of languages in societies leads to the constitution of linguistic hierarchies. By the emancipation of a language, I mean the improving of the position of an oppressed language through political efforts and language planning. If a language is used only in private life, and maybe in primary livelihoods, only orally but seldom in literate forms, linguistic human rights are violated, and the group identifying with this language is oppressed-and usually not only linguistically. Language emancipation is the process through which the oppressed language is brought into use in schools and in various sectors of public life, orally and in writing. Linguistic human rights (Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson, 1989, 1994) are at the core of language emancipation. Absence of these rights implies that there is a need for language emancipation.
