Tomorrow is International Mother Language Day:

Preserving languages for the future

By Pramod DE SILVA

A language laboratory

Around 6,000 languages are spoken around the world, but nearly half of them are endangered. Yes, just like flora and fauna, languages too can die! A death of a language signifies the loss of a cultural and linguistic heritage. Is the world doing enough to save these languages, each a unique repository of knowledge and experiences of a particular people?

That is the question which will be on everybody's lips tomorrow, February 21, International Mother Language Day. People all over the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, have a native language. Here in Sri Lanka, our native languages (or mother tongues) are Sinhala and Tamil.

The mother tongue is the language that we learn to recognise and speak from the very early days. We may learn three or four languages later, but we are truly at home only when expressing ourselves in the mother tongue. We are proud of our mother tongue, no matter where in the world we live in.

Languages are indeed a prime treasure of humanity. Although there are more than 6,000 languages on earth, only a few hundred are prominent. English is the undisputed king of languages in the world, followed by Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Spanish and Hindi. Each country is generally associated with a language of its own, though some countries have three to four official languages.

The ability to speak is generally recognised as one of the most significant traits of 'being human'. That separates us from primates who almost have the same level of intelligence in every other aspect. For millennia, humans have been using unique combinations of words that evolved into what we call languages.

The International Mother Language Day (IMLD) was proclaimed by the General Conference of UNESCO in November 1999. It has been observed yearly since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. In 2011, it is being celebrated worldwide for the 12th successive year.

Bengali language

Its precursor was the international recognition of Language Movement Day, which has been commemorated in Bangladesh since 1952 to remember those who strove to preserve and protect the Bengali language. In fact, it was Bangladesh that proposed the very idea of having a Mother Language Day to the UN.

With so much technology around, why not use it to preserve languages? This year, the IMLD focuses on the theme 'Information and communication technologies for safeguarding and promoting languages and linguistic diversity'.

One such initiative is UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. It is intended to raise awareness about language endangerment and the need to safeguard the world's linguistic diversity among policy-makers, speaker communities and the public, and to be a tool to monitor the status of endangered languages and the trends in linguistic diversity at the global level.

The latest edition of the Atlas (2010, available in English, French and Spanish) lists about 2,500 languages (among which are 230 languages extinct since 1950), approaching the generally-accepted estimate of some 3,000 endangered languages worldwide. For each language, the print Atlas provides its name, degree of endangerment and the country or countries where it is spoken.

Online Atlas

The online edition of the Atlas provides additional information on numbers of speakers, relevant policies and projects, sources, ISO codes and geographic coordinates. This free Internet-based version of the Atlas for the first time permits wide accessibility and allows for interactivity and timely updating of information, based on feedback provided by users.

This Atlas brings us back to the question of how languages survive. One simple answer is 'intergenerational transmission' - in other words, it goes from one generation to the other. As long as population numbers are sufficient, a language will not disappear. Incredibly, some languages are down to only a few families or a few individuals - these languages have no future.

Along with the speakers themselves, they face the threat of extinction. Preserving our mother tongues has become a major challenge as nearly 90 percent of the languages in use are in danger of being 'lost' by 2100.

The loss of a language for ever is a black mark on the collective human conscience. A language represents a particular culture, a way of life and the very soul of a particular community of people. Therefore, all attempts must be made to preserve our languages for posterity. Some countries have braved all odds to revive languages on the verge of extinction.

Technology can help preserve languages. Thanks to technology, there will always be someone who can learn, admire and decipher a language facing extinction. There are people who can still read and speak ancient languages that are long gone. Likewise, there will be those who can use today's endangered languages in the future. The future is still a bit bleak for languages that do not have an alphabet, though. The Internet has also become a major avenue for language studies.

In today's world, a language cannot be considered in isolation. We hear Sinhalese and Tamil being spoken all over the world, not just in Sri Lanka. English is spoken everywhere. This applies to most other languages too. Thus the Mother Language Day has increasingly drawn the international community's attention to the foundations of linguistic diversity and multilingualism in this globalised world.

Dynamic entities

Moreover, languages are not static. They are dynamic entities that evolve with the passage of time. They interact with other languages and borrow words, which become 'native' over a period of time. Did you know that there are around 15,000 French words in English? Or that English words have crept into almost every language on earth thanks to its global dominance?

There are many Portuguese words in Sinhala. There are many similar words in Sinhala, Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam. This, of course, can be attributed to the fact that all languages are derived from various language groups. In fact, studying the origins of words in any language is a fascinating subject in itself and a window into the past.

It often shows that even people living on opposite sides of the world have more in common than we usually think. The more we travel, the more we interact, all languages around the world will increase their diversity.

Global languages

While there is great emphasis on the importance of global languages such as English for education, the native language is still the key to education for all children. Learning the native language(s) and gaining literacy is essential.

Mother tongues can also be a foundation for peace and mutual co-existence. If all Sri Lankans knew Sinhala and Tamil well enough at least to converse (if not write and read), the conflict in the North and the East would not have come far. Thus it is vital for communities in countries where several languages are spoken, to learn each other's languages.

It is heartening to note that education authorities have taken steps to teach Sinhala and Tamil, along with English, to all schoolchildren. After all, childhood is the best time to learn a new language. The electronic media too can play a major role in this regard by having more programs to teach the native languages.

Languages can bridge cultural and ethnic divides. Learning another person's or community's language opens a door to their soul. Go anywhere in the world and just speak a word or two in the mother tongue of a native - you will instantly know the difference it makes. It earns you a lot of respect and gives you a lot of confidence as well in a strange country or region.

Languages bring communities - and the world together. In celebrating languages, we are celebrating the very essence of humanity - and life. The IMLD is an ideal opportunity to reflect on the importance of our native languages and the efforts being made to protect all languages for posterity.