WHY LANGUAGES -DO- MATTER

2008 - International Year of Languages

by Mariel GM (FaerieGirl) for YMEX.org

Index for you to know what this is about

Disclaimer (slides 3-4)

Language 101, Language 201 and Language for experts

Opportunities languages give to people

The reason why 2008 is the International Year of Languages

Dilemmas!!!

References

Reminder

DisclaimerThis slideshow was created for the use of YMEX.org members who are taking part in the International Year of Languages Quest or who simply want to know why languages are important enough to be the subject of an YMEX.org quest... or why they are just important.

This slideshow may be shared, as stated by the Creative Commons license it is under (attribution, non-commercial, share-alike), with any individual or community as long as it is not done with commercial purposes and the maker is credited.

Disclaimer ( because it never ends)

This slideshow cannot be considered official information published by an institution, although a large part of it is based on information of this type.

People who want to know more about the official event this slideshow is based on should visit the Culture section on www.unesco.org .

Image taken from www.unesco.org

Language 101Language \ˈlaŋ-gwij, -wij\:

[Insert a lot of meanings here]Want to see some of them? Go to http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/language

Want something concise?

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language )

So, in short, language implies communication.^ That = Language 101

Language 201What makes a language be a language and not... a dog?*It has a grammar *Its symbols are agreed upon by people (i.e. of a linguistic consensus: saying ‘EPIC FAIL’ instead of saying ‘your 5-year-old niece just beat you in the game’)

Types of languages:

Human FormalArtificial(what we speak... English, Spanish,

etc.)

Constructed (Tolkien’s)

International auxiliary language(Esperanto)

Controlled(simplified English)

(the one made for mathematics,

scripting, etc.)

^ Language 201Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language

Language for expertsGuess what :D

Language gives us way more than just a

grammar and a pretty set of symbols.

^ That = Language for true experts

The opportunities languages give to people

The opportunity to say something to the world and solve your needs that way;

to know who you are because speaking x language makes you different from those who don’t;

to be part of a social group (do you think you could socialize a lot if you went to, say, Egypt and didn’t speak Arabic?);

to have access to education (or do you think indigenous people who don’t speak Spanish get to go to Spanish-speaking schools in Mexico?);

to develop in any aspect of their lives (speaking certain language can open you doors to anything from romantic dates to job opportunities);

to keep lifelong traditions alive (how many traditional songs would vanish if Swahili stopped being spoken in the world?);

Source: http://www.unesco.org/culture/files-languges/broch2008_en.pdf

(More opportunities)

to eradicate poverty and hunger (as they let you have a job, be integrated to a social group, have access to education, participate in politics);

to reach the Millennium Development Goals ( http://www.un.org/Pubs/CyberSchoolBus/mdgs/index.asp ; http://www.sil.org/sil/global/mdg_booklet_english.pdf );

to promote environmental sustainability (this one’s hard to believe, no? But hey - traditional knowledge carries a lot of eco-friendly values. No kidding! http://www.ec.gc.ca/science/sandesept02/article1_e.html );

to enjoy the basic types of freedom - speech, press, education.

Source: http://www.unesco.org/culture/files-languges/broch2008_en.pdf

So why is 2008 the International Year of Languages?

OK - so languages are important, but are they important enough to have a year of their own?

Image taken from www.brucegregory.com/ images/unitednations.jpg

UN General Assembly says ‘yesssss’

Why the UNGA says ‘yessss’Because multilingualism promotes unity in diversity

Because linguistic diversity is one of the basis for cultural diversity (and why is cultural diversity important? See http://ymex.org/mashups/view.html?ID=556 )

Because said linguistic diversity is under threat today as many languages disappear due to the dominance of other languages (like English or Spanish)

Because languages can help us develop (see the MDG thing again!)

Sources: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/ga10592.doc.htm ; http://www.unesco.org/culture/files-languges/broch2008_en.pdf

Dilemmas!!!! (almost)So now you know why languages

-do- matter.You also know that people face problems due to language everyday, and politicians have to figure out ways to solve

those problems.

Maybe you have an idea more or less of what these ‘linguistic’ problems are like, but, if you don’t, get to

know a few random cases:

Dilemmas!!! (OK, no. 1 now)

Ever thought that there are way too many languages in the world?

So did a man named Ludwig Zamenhof, and he decided to do something about it. He

invented a whole new language that could be, as he said, easily learned by everyone.

Image taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._L._Zamenhof

This language is Esperanto, btw.

Dilemmas!!! (-1-)So some say communication -might- be easier to achieve if everyone

speaks Esperanto, but some say that Esperanto is a threat to linguistic and cultural diversity. After all, each language has a reason to be...

So say you have the power to convince all the governments in the world to make the decision you want

them to make.What would you choose?

Everyone speaking the native language (i.e. not Esperanto)

Everyone speaking Esperanto.vs

Dilemmas!!! -2-We hear of governments that invest in making traditional language a compulsory subject in schools, or in translating all official documents so that they will be in the current language of use and the traditional one.

Consequences: traditional language is alive again; money is invested into that and it pays off, but it is not used on more

immediate issues (i.e. hunger relief).

Is this preservation worth it, do you think, or is it not?

Dilemmas!!! -3-Today, there are countries in all continents that receive a lot of people who

migrate from their homeland in search for better opportunities.Studies have shown that children learn better when they are taught in their mother tongue than when they are taught in a language that is foreign to them. Immigrants’ mother tongue is not always the national language of they country they now live in, and it is likely that they will not return to their motherland soon.

If you were in charge of public education in a community where there is a large number of immigrants, would you implement the native language of the immigrants in the

system?

Dilemmas!!! -4-Pretend that you live in a community in which you grew up speaking x language (your native language), but where now

another language (foreign language to you) is the most widely spoken one.

You are in charge of the choice of the native language of your children.

What would you teach them as a native language? Your native language, or the most widely spoken language in

your community?

ReferencesGopinath, S. (2008). “The Bilingual Dilemma” in Little India. Retrieved on September 19th, 2008, from http://www.littleindia.com/news/142/ARTICLE/2821/2008-05-10.html ;

Merriam-Webster. (2008). “Language” in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved on September 1st, 2008, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/language ;

UNESCO. (2008). Languages matter! Retrieved on September 19th, 2008, from http://www.unesco.org/culture/files-languges/broch2008_en.pdf ;

UNESCO. (2008). International Year of Language. Retrieved on September 1st, 2008, from http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=35344&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html ;

United Nations General Assembly. (2007). General Assembly Proclaims 2008 International Year of Languages, in Effort to Promote Unity in Diversity, Global Understanding. Retrieved on September 19th, 2008, from http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/ga10592.doc.htm ;

Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. (2008). “L. L. Zamenhof” in Wikipedia, the #ee encyclopedia. Retrieved on September 19th, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._L._Zamenhof ;

Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. (2008). “Language” in Wikipedia, the #ee encyclopedia. Retrieved on September 1st, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language .

Reminder

PSSSSSSST!!!!If you reached this slideshow because of the

International Year of Languages Quest (or are interested in taking part in it, anyway), you

should bear the dilemmas mentioned above in mind for the next steps...