Linguistic discrimination is discrimination based on someone’s language use. And it’s not restricted to the instances I discussed above
These are important legal protections and the number of people affected by them is huge: There are over 350 different languages spoken in the United States. In Seattle, where I live, over a fifth of people over age five speak a language other than English at home. That’s a lot of people! Further, most of these individuals are bilingual or multilingual; 90% of second-generation immigrants speak English. And since multilingualism has both neurological benefits for individuals and larger positive impacts on society, I see this as no bad thing. And I’m hardly the only one: how many people that you know are learning or want to learn another language?
Unfortunately, linguistic discrimination threatens this rich diversity, and every person who speaks anything other than the standardized variety of the dominant language.