Scotland has three languages of its own, plus the many tongues of those who have settled here. So it was appropriate that Scottish PEN was a leading participant in an international study of languages under pressure, proposed by the Catalans in 1987. In 1989 a statement was drafted, which became the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights adopted at a conference in Barcelona. The languages of stateless groups are particularly vulnerable.

Scottish PEN:

• Campaigns for the preservation of minority languages
• Works to make them more accessible through translation
• Participates in the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party groups for Gaelic and Scots, with the aim of applying the Universal Declaration to both.

Scottish PEN members Kate Armstrong and Rody Gorman translated Shi Tao’s poem ‘June’ into Scots and Gaelic respectively, as part of the 2008 Chinese poem relay. Find out more at the Writers in Prison Current Cases page.

Scottish PEN members have regularly attended International PEN's conferences on Translation and Linguistic Rights at Ohrid, Macedonia.

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