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Endangered Languages, Endangered Cultures
March 19, 2009
In a child’s social and moral development, playing ‘good guys’ versus ‘bad guys’ is very normal and important for their growth.
-Dan Hodgins, early childhood consultant, author, defender of play and friend of children, whose rece
-Dan Hodgins, early childhood consultant, author, defender of play and friend of children, whose rece
At the 2000 World Forum on Early Care and Education in Singapore, Andrew Ikupu talked about ambitious efforts being made in his home country, Papua New Guinea, to preserve the nation's 800+ indigenous languages. Andrew related how he would go into a village and work with the elders to build a school out of materials available in the surrounding environment and to recruit and train someone from that community to teach young children in their indigenous language. Community members, proud of the school they had built, made sure the school and its teacher were successful.
Now a report from UNESCO on endangered languages reports that the work Andrew was involved in is paying fruits: "Papua New Guinea, the country which has the greatest linguistic diversity on the planet (more than 800 languages are believed to be spoken there), also has relatively few endangered languages (88)."
The report, Endangered Languages, Endangered Thought, observes that around the world, efforts to preserve languages are not always so successful.
With the death of Marie Smith Jones, the Eyak language of Alaska (United States) died out last year and Ubykh (Turkey) vanished in 1992 with the demise of Tevfik Esenç. Out of the approximately 6,000 existing languages in the world, more than 200 have become extinct during the last three generations, 538 are critically endangered, 502 severely endangered, 632 definitely endangered and 607 unsafe, according to the new edition of the “UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger”. For example, the Atlas states that 199 languages have fewer than ten speakers and 178 others have 10 to 50.
As UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura stressed, “The death of a language leads to the disappearance of many forms of intangible cultural heritage, especially the invaluable heritage of traditions and oral expressions of the community that spoke it — from poems and legends to proverbs and jokes. The loss of languages is also detrimental to humanity’s grasp of biodiversity, as they transmit much knowledge about the nature and the universe.”
Three months before the 2009 World Forum on Early Care and Education, it has sold out. We have over 600 delegates from 78 countries! However, from our experience with the previous seven World Forums, there will be a number of cancellations for a variety of reasons. Therefore, if you still are eager to attend, we urge you to sign up on our online waiting list as soon as possible. When positions open up, individuals on the waiting list will be invited to register on a first-come first-served basis.
World Forum on Early Care and Education
June 16 - 19, 2009
Belfast, Northern Ireland
June 16 - 19, 2009
Belfast, Northern Ireland
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Comments (3)
Displaying All 3 CommentsBenghazi, Benghazi, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
The solution is through Ardano language.
Yes we can gather ourselves to help endangered languages.
And I can explain.
The number of dying languages in the coming two centuries scares me a lot. It's like losing the icebergs in the poles because of global warming Nobody wants to watch losing our nature or its diversity.
The same thing we can see in Ardano. Any Ardanist will be very close to all the languages in the world as one group ,because Ardano contains words from all languages. Losing even hundreds from thousands is very scary to anyone who loves languages.
Ardano wants a stable number of living languages , we hope that all the 6912 living languages are protected . This number was the choice of Ardano from the beginning.
Ardano is the language that uses documented words from all languages , therefor even after the language extinction Ardano speakers will still speak those words , At least ,with Ardano the momory of endangered languages will never die.
We don't need just to document endangered languages ,but also to keep their communities within the circle of their language. We should give them an easy international language to communicate with the foreign world ,while this communicating language and its community keep both eyes on the status of that small language .
Ardano is like a simple indicator for what is happening to the world's languages. The only thing that I could do as a person is to keep the memory of those languages at least in the dictionary or the wonderful Ardano poems and eventually in the hearts of Ardanists. We want to do more in protecting endangered languages ,but unfortunately we don't have a big community like some very old conlangs.
What is interesting in Ardano community is that it is the nearest conlang community to the problem of endangered languages. In addition the person who chose Ardano is a person who have no objection about the presence of small languages in the world language, Therefore he or she is more likely to protect those languages. . This could make any Ardano community more active and effective linguistically than any other conlang community
Ardano will put the problem of losing the natural languages under the spotlight . Increasing the support for Ardano will increase the interested people in protecting the weak languages.
Of course a helpful conlang community which is in constant touch with all languages in the world is by far much better for the cultural and the linguistic world.
Ardano is not just the participation of words from small languages.
Not just the regularity and easiness of Ardano are important ,although they can help enriching the small languages through the easiness of translations from the world language. But it will be an encouragement for that endangered language community knowing that some words in the world language came from their language. They will feel the global importance of their language. Anyone would be happy after knowing that the whole world is using even few words from his\her language.
Ardano is a meeting place for co-operative people who love languages and who took the first step towards protecting small languages ,by supporting a worldlang that recognize the presence and the rights of all languages . This gathering of people will make them even stronger and more effective in the participation of endangered languages protection. Ardano has words from all languages ,and any language facing the danger of extinction will turn on the alarm in the Ardano community .
Using a world language with words from all around the world will give a chance for many people to build personal contacts with those natural languages. Personally before Ardano I was hearing about the problem of endangered languages and I wished to help ,but I was not motivated like I am now. Because now I speak words from those languages. The problem of endangered languages touched me more deeper. The words are beautiful just like my mother tongue. Many people would love more languages if they used words from them in everyday life. Many people if they loved other languages would help protecting them. We need to create a conlang community that not just loves the conlang and ignores the others, but we need a community that really loves all natural languages in the world. At least this will be the right beginning.
Those big conlangs community officials find themselves talking with emptiness about the linguistic diversity. They say we protect diversity . If there is diversity in their languages then where is my language. I can't find a word from my language and thousands of other languages. Simply they ignored them. There is no need to claim that the auxlang can help linguistic diversity since it lacks the real diversity in the first place.
Also, Ardano will give speakers of any bigger language the needed contentedness and relief after knowing that their language is respected and has its role in the global communications . Their language has its portion in Ardano ,and this is like sending a simple message that says they can live peacefully together with different people of the world just like the harmony between different words from different language origins in Ardano . They will feel that the world is based on a relation between equals. I can insure that any feeling about discrimination at least linguistically will simply vanish after the use of Ardano
To succeed in convincing the world , the whole world , to use what this movement talked about for more than a century then we need to use something closer to the people , I mean all people. Every person should be happy with the world language ,because he\she is a part of this world . It's our world .
In the world cup of any game . All nations play in the qualifiers. Even the most powerful nation in soccer , Brazil , still plays in the qualifications along with very small nations ,because it's the world cup ,not the cup of powerful nations.
The UN contains USA and also that very tiny nation. Yes USA has more power in the UN ,and also the powerful languages have an advantage in Ardano ,but without forgetting every single language. That is what we should fight for.
I was lucky because I have found this giant library in front of me, the Internet, I was able to create Ardano ,which was in the past an impossible dream . Now we are in the era of globalization ,and we need to take steps to improve with it. We need to change this movement toward the final direction directly towards the goal of so many generations of auxlangers.
Ardano besides helping endangered languages , has another big task which is to introduce the fairest and the most neutral a posteriori system in every era ,and this is for better facilitated communications which will help the world in many things including economy ,culture ,and of course protecting the remaining languages.
I haven't talked about Neutrality . I mean the real neutrality. And I haven't talked about the principle of the fair language. Or the students on equal footing in a posteriori system . You cannot put all students in an equal footing in a posteriori system ,but Ardano did. So the group of auxlangers who fought for the a priori systems ,now they can join back the a posteriori auxlangers.
I really need your help to try, Just to try to change the world , but it will not be any change ,because all what the IAL movement talked about in a century, we will add more new things. If you have joined this movement because of the so many advantages of auxlangs , Now with Ardano you need to put more advantages. First of all Ardano changed me ,because of foreigners reactions when I talk about Ardano in front of them. I say look to that world language that doesn't contain your language ,and look to your language Ardano ,and immediately you see the smile ,and not any smile. This happiness is the thing behind Ardano.
It is not just an easy communicating language ,but also it could be the greatest symbol of social justice in everyday life ,if succeeded. And it cannot succeed without your help.
The languages of indigenous people along with all European languages . And also all the African and Asian languages. All languages are side by side ,because Ardano is based on two sentences
The first ("All languages deserve to be the world language("
And the second ("All languages deserve to be learned and spoken("
You cannot achieve these two great principles without thinking about Ardano.
This is the last equity and equality movement. Do you want to participate?
Zeinelabidin Elhassi
links to Ardano
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ardano/
http://ardano.tripod.com
http://ardano.tripod.com/english/id11.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ardano/links
http://nova-esperanto.blogspot.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ardano/messages
Putaruru, New Zealand
It is always sad to hear of languages dying out. In New Zealand we were faced with the possible loss of the Maori language not too many years ago and due to the action of the Maori people this has turned around. We have language nests for pre schoolers, full immersion schools and even the opportunity for university work to be completed in te reo Maori. Such a change from not so many years ago when Maori was forbidden to be spoken in schools. Some of the "old" language has gone with the passing of the elders however Maori is alive and well and growing each year. A great success worth celebrating in a small country!
Marshall University
Huntington, West Virginia, United States
A side issue is the loss of dialects. I live in the USA Appalachian region. The Appalachian English dialect is a beautiful descriptive, poetic way of speaking. However, mainstream media and outsiders denigrate this way of speaking so much so that my college students are embarassed by their way of speaking. They do not understand the value of being "bidilectical". Dialects can be so much more expressive; I wish our world would be more accepting of diversity and not make people feel lesser because of their way of speaking!
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