Deutsche Welle - February 21, 2008
A new language is a new life. February 21st has been designated as "Mother Language Day," a day that has been celebrated since 2000 by UNESCO to support half of the world's languages that are endangered.
In the Eskimo language, distance is not measured in "miles" or "kilometers," but in the unit of "sleep." Yes, don’t be surprised. Eskimos ask: "How many times do we need to sleep and wake up to reach the destination?" Similar examples can be found in other languages as well. For example, the Persian phrase "Khasteh Nabashid" (meaning “don’t be tired”) is translated into other languages in a way that instructs the listener not to be tired! Or the expression "Dastat Dard Nakone" (meaning “don’t feel pain in your hand”) – why would someone who has given directions experience pain in their hands? To truly understand the meaning of phrases like these, which are common in various languages and dialects, and are sometimes completely different when translated into another language, one must understand the history of that language and the culture of its people.
Language is a reflection of the culture of the people who speak it; it is the representative of their identity and explains their world. Language, like a living entity, evolves with its people, helping them articulate their world, growing with them, and sometimes even dying. The death of a language means the death of a part of human culture.
Davyth Hicks, editor of a news service dedicated to small European languages, believes: "Linguistic diversity is part of biodiversity. When animals and creatures disappear, it harms our planet, but in my opinion, if languages disappear and only English, French, or Chinese remain, our world will be poorer."
Decapitation or with Cotton
To preserve linguistic and cultural diversity, the United Nations declared 2008 as the "International Year of Languages," which begins simultaneously with "International Mother Language Day" (February 21). The event officially starts at UNESCO headquarters in Paris with a seminar where participants from all over the world announce their regional and national programs to preserve linguistic diversity.
One thing is clear to everyone, and that is that linguistic diversity is in decline. Currently, out of about 7,000 living languages worldwide, half are endangered, and political conflicts with minorities are one of the significant factors threatening them.
When the Australian government forces the Aborigines to abandon their native language and punishes or even sentences to death any indigenous person caught speaking their mother tongue; or when the government of Pakistan, in 1952, decides to make Urdu the official language, despite only 3% of the population speaking it, one cannot expect the flourishing of linguistic diversity.
Although the approach of governments to minority languages has softened today, this minority-hostility shows itself in different forms. For example, Kurdish is still not taught in schools in Turkey. In China, there are at least seven official languages with over 130 dialects, but since the 1950s, only two languages (Mandarin and Putonghua) have been recognized as official languages. These two languages are spoken by only half of China’s 1.3 billion population.
Interestingly, Putonghua is an advantage in cities when looking for a suitable job, which motivates parents to guide their children towards learning it.
Many languages are also on the verge of extinction before they are even written down. In Africa alone, there are over 2,000 different languages. However, in many of the countries on the continent, English, French, or Portuguese are the official languages.
The Link Between Language and Social Justice Development
According to some experts, language, government, and democracy are closely connected. This means that if a group of people in a specific country speaks a language that was passed down by colonial powers years ago, that group is marginalized from their own society.
A simple example clarifies the issue. In India, despite Hindi and English being the official languages, only 40% of the population speaks them. In this country, 600 different ethnic groups in the mountains speak languages that are not even taught in schools. Of the 400 languages spoken in India, only 60 are taught in schools.
However, positive steps have also been taken to connect culture, language, and identity. Today, texts are being written in languages that were once only spoken. This is precisely the goal emphasized by experts within the framework of the "International Year of Languages."
The link to the original article in Farsi on Deutsche Welle Persian:
روز جهانی زبان مادری