Talk:Minority language

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This claim very much needs corroborative documentation (and editing - it either is the only or isn't):

In the United States, for example, American Sign Language is the most used minority language yet almost the only minority language which lacks official government recognition.

[edit] Consciously Created Auxiliary Languages (conauxlangs)

We read the following in the article:

To date, the auxiliary language Interlingua has been most successsful in obtaining official recognition. For example, the Interlingua organization Union Mundial pro Interlingua (UMI) has consultative status with UNESCO and has been influential in the work of the International Organization for Standardization.

Where are the references for this? So far, I do not know about any relationship between ISO and UMI. I would like to know more about that.

I have read somewhere that UEA (Universala Esperanto Asocio) has some symbolic links with UNESCO (something along the lines of an abstract declaration that states "compatibilities of some goals"), but I do not know any real influence UEA has upon UNESCO or ISO. --Antonielly 19:54, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

From what I recall, ISO made Interlingua the main basis for its international standardization of terminology. Gopsill's book International Languages: A Matter for Interlingua briefly discusses the relationship between Interlingua and ISO. I'll include this book as a reference for now, although I think there is a better one and I'll look for that one as well.

Along similar lines, the US Department of Agriculture used Interlingua pretty thoroughly in its large Multilingual Compendium of Plant Diseases, and the Interlingua translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was actually requested by the UN.

I've also read about a declaration between UNESCO and UEA, but at this point I'm a little skeptical of it. I think this was in a Wikipedia article. As I recall, ISO initially voted to adopt Esperanto but later rejected it almost unanimously in favor of Interlingua. The Interlingua article makes a brief mention of ISO. Cal (talk) 04:59, 22 December 2007 (UTC)