It is usually considered that a common public sphere is a prerequisite of any democratic regime, where citizens can deliberate and act according to their duty to carry out justice. This prerequisite, however, can be complicated due to linguistic diversity. This paper deals with linguistic diversity and the establishment of a shared public sphere in ‘primary multilingual political communities’ in which territorial divisions are not possible because linguistic communities are intermingled. I argue that linguistic justice, with the aim to create the conditions to maximize the incentives to share the public sphere (and the private as well), would be achieved if two principles are reached: (1) the equal recognition of all the host (not migrant) languages of the community and (2) the non-segregation principle for reasons of language. Although both principles can have a problematic relationship, I argue that they can be fitted into a just linguistic theory of justice.
