We do not discuss the sovereign right of states to legalize or constitutionalize official or national languages; that is part of another debate on language rights, for "new minorities" or "historical nations" in particular Kymlicka (2001) and Kymlicka and Banting (2006). Our empirical starting point is a "conventional view," namely, the current situation in which most states have official or national languages and legitimately control the access to public institutions, citizenship, and territory. These are considered as "club goods," e.g., excludable while not necessarily rivalrous goods (Carens 2013; Buchanan 1965). We however question the legitimacy of states, when languages are considered as excludable club goods. See n. 6.

In international politics as in the domestic management of collective claims, everything today is a question of ‘identity’: identity-based demands, identity-based mobilizations, ethnic, religious, social and professional identity, etc. Recourse to the term ‘identity’, whether by the group concerned or from distant analysts, is the most immediately evocative and the most effective packaging in its appeal to common sense. It is as if there were a legitimacy immediately attached to identities: ‘oppressed identities’ (oppressed by the state, by the big and powerful, by the West, by globalization or by market liberalism) always fit the bill. Martyrs or liberators, opponents of the order in power and self-proclaimed holders of an alternative identity are all situated in a face-to-face situation that at once ensures them if not sympathy, then at least understanding. The only clear dividing line between perceptions of ‘identity-based movements’ is the recourse to violence: if one recognizes the legitimacy of working for a community-based culture and an identity that is shielded from the great process of global homogenization, then the use of (terrorist) violence must be condemned.

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This chapter aims at setting out a transitory fair language regime for migrants. I show that a lingua franca regime in “Open English” can co-exist with linguistic diversity and ad hoc multilingualism, and that this regime can be sustained transitionally by bilingual bridge-speakers. Democratic requirements of inclusion and parity of esteem can be achieved through a creative non-permanent linguistic arrangement via ad hoc multilingualism plus Open English, particularily relevant in intermediary institutions and situations where newcomers are not (yet) competent in the host-country’s language.