The Cambridge Handbook of Language and Political Conflict

Based on a range of global case studies, this handbook explores how language shapes identity, conflict, and power worldwide. Ideal for scholars, students, and policymakers in linguistics, political science, and international relations, it highlights how linguistic difference drives political struggles—and how language policy shapes peace or unrest.

Moving beyond familiar discussions of ethnic conflict, this Handbook presents a bold rethinking of how language shapes identity, power, and violence. With contributions from leading scholars in linguistics, political science, and public policy, it presents global case studies alongside new analytic tools for the study of language and global politics. It introduces “language conflict” as a clearer and more useful framework-one that brings linguistic structure, institutional policy, and communicative inequality into focus. Split into four sections, chapters cover topics such as hate speech, language rights, transitional justice, education policy, and postcolonial literature, spanning contexts from Cameroon to Catalonia, and from Guatemala to Sri Lanka. Together, these chapters show how language is not simply a cultural marker, but a political force that shapes collective identities, nationalism, and resistance. It is essential reading for anyone interested in language policy, multilingual governance, and the deep entanglement of language with political life.