CultureWatch
Will Children Inherit All Our Languages?
By Herminia Roque, for the Chronicle

Many things can lead to people abandoning their native tongue. One is the break-up or transplanting of a community when individuals or groups find themselves immersed in a different cultural and linguistic environment. Another is when individuals come in contact with a more aggressive or economically strong culture, and adults encourage their children to learn the language of the dominant culture, especially as a means to getting a job. The situation is worse when authorities systematically discourage the use of local languages in schools, local government and the media. But an endangered, moribund or even extinct language can be saved through a determined language policy.

Experts generally consider a community language to be “endangered” when at least 30 per cent of the children no longer learn it. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reports that about half of the approximately 6,000 languages spoken in the world are under threat, seriously endangered or dying. According to the Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing, languages have died out and disappeared at a dramatic and steadily increasing pace in many parts of the world, especially in the Americas and Australia, over the past three centuries.

International Mother Language Day, celebrated every February, aims at promoting linguistic diversity and multilingual education, and raising awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue. The Atlas shows the “crisis areas” where linguistic diversity is most threatened. About 50 European languages are in danger, and some spoken in Scandinavia and northern Russia are regarded as seriously endangered or moribund. In Siberia, nearly all the 40 or so local languages are disappearing, while France has 14 that are seriously endangered.

In Asia, the situation is uncertain in many parts of China; by contrast, India has maintained its extensive and well-catalogued linguistic diversity, thanks to its government policies. According to UNESCO, languages are “generally alive and well” in the Pacific region, where there are more than 2,000 living languages - one third of the world’s total. Papua New Guinea alone counts at least 820 - a world record for linguistic density. However, there are three crisis areas. In Taiwan, 14 of the 23 local languages are yielding to Chinese, while two thirds of the 60,000 indigenous people in New Caledonia have forgotten their mother tongue. In Australia, where Aborigines were forbidden to speak some 400 or so languages until the 1970s, a record number of languages have disappeared or are in danger, and only about 25 are still commonly spoken.

Africa is linguistically the least-known continent, the Atlas states, with many of its Governments encouraging the use of the major African languages, such as Swahili (in East Africa), or even the colonial languages. Of the 1,400 local languages, between 500 and 600 are on the decline, while 250 are under threat of disappearing. Nigeria and East Africa are the two crisis areas in this region. In North America, very few Inuit Eskimo languages in the Arctic have survived the pressure from English and French. Canada has been working to save these languages, along with 104 Amerindian tongues that survive. In the United States, out of the several hundred Indian languages spoken before the arrival of the Europeans, less than 150 have survived. In Central and South America, there is not as much language diversity as elsewhere because of the “extermination of entire peoples in eastern Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay”.

The role of UNESCO in the field of languages is part of its efforts to protect intangible heritage, in the same way as natural and cultural treasures of tangible heritage.



‘Say Yes for Children’
By Matthias Georg Wabl, for the Chronicle

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) - the world governing body for football - have announced a global alliance for children. FIFA will dedicate the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan to children under the banner of “Say Yes for Children”. This is the first time a World Cup has ever been dedicated to a humanitarian cause. The partnership will publicize the “Say Yes for Children” campaign, which urges people everywhere to pledge their commitment to ten essential actions needed to improve and protect children’s lives.

“We are very excited about this partnership with FIFA”, said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy. “It is not the first time that UNICEF and football have joined forces. The game has been helping us to ‘Kick Polio out of Africa’, and several of our Goodwill Ambassadors are current or former football stars who are working tirelessly to build a world fit for children.” Several stars, among them Brazilian football legend Pele and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Roger Moore of “James Bond” fame, will actively engage in promoting the campaign. Both attended its launch, along with Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a group of school children.

Football legend Pele and a group of school-age children attended the launch of UNICEF and FIFA’s global alliance for children. (UN Photo)