290 L. Kingston, A. Seibert Hanson and its recent return to military governance.1 State repression during the country’s authoritarian regimes (1962–2011) ended hopes for ethnic recognition but fostered the formation of a shared identity, both within Myanmar and among the diaspora in Southeast Asia and the Middle East (Leider 2018). Genocidal violence in August 2017 triggered the largest and most rapid Rohingya refugee influx to Bangladesh, following years of human rights abuses and previous waves of violence (in 1978, 1991–1992, and 2016). An estimated 745,000 Rohingya—including more than 400,000 children—fled to Cox’s Bazar, now known as the world’s largest refugee camp (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs n.d.). Despite international outrage against the mass atrocities committed in Myanmar, the following years have not brought adequate responses to human rights and humanitarian challenges impacting the Rohingya inside and outside the country (Morada 2020). Language plays a role in the ongoing persecution of the stateless Rohingya people in Myanmar and it continues to shape their experiences in displacement. The Rohingya speak an Indo-European language of the Southeastern Bengali branch, called Ruáingga or Rohingya, that is understood in Bangladesh’s southeastern Chittagong region but is foreign to Myanmar’s majority of Burmese (Bama saga) speakers. This difference, combined with the fact that the Rohingya people are Muslims in a predominately Buddhist state, fuels accusations that the Rohingya are illegal “Bengalis” unworthy of attaining legal nationality. In Burmese public schools, the Rohingya language is barred and classes are taught in the Rakhine or Burmese languages, which Rohingya students often cannot understand. Teachers say they are banned from teaching the Rohingya language, history, and culture—and are even prohibited from using the term “Rohingya” in schools (Klug 2018). Anti-Rohingya language policies fuel human rights abuses in Myanmar, including the 2017 mass atrocities that sparked forced displacement to neighboring countries such as Bangladesh, and they should be recognized as such. Discriminatory language policies are just one weapon in the arsenal of discrimination against the Rohingya people in Myanmar, and the violation of their language rights has continued in displacement—all while linguistic rights are rarely discussed in relation to human rights and humanitarian concerns. This article resulted from a collaboration between a linguist and a human rights scholar, who sought to fill this research gap with their combined expertise in human rights, language policy, and humanitarian practice. First, an overview of international human rights standards related to language highlights vital connections to rights norms associated with the protection of minorities, children, and Indigenous peoples—including the prevention of cultural 1 Myanmar’s military dictatorship had supposedly ended (in 2011) by the time the Rohingya people were displaced in 2017, with the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) (under de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi) heavily criticized for stifling dissent and diminishing democratic space. Human Rights Watch (2019b) argued that the NLD was “doing little to address the country’s weak rule of law, corrupt judiciary, or impunity for security force abuses” and noted that the 2008 constitution placed the Ministries of Defense, Home Affairs, and Border Affairs under the control of the military (para 3). The Burmese military took over Myanmar’s government in a February 2021 coup and charged Suu Kyi with corruption. Anti-coup protests were ongoing at the time of this writing. 13