2008 - INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF LANGUAGES (fwd)

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2008 - INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF LANGUAGES
http://www.unesco.ru/eng/articles/2004/Valya02112007175015.php

The year 2008 has been proclaimed International Year of Languages by the
United Nations General Assembly. UNESCO, which has been entrusted with the
task of coordinating activities for the Year, is determined to fulfil its
role as lead agency.

The Organization is fully aware of the crucial importance of languages when
seen against the many challenges that humanity will have to face over the
next few decades.

Languages are indeed essential to the identity of groups and individuals and
to their peaceful coexistence. They constitute a strategic factor of
progress towards sustainable development and a harmonious relationship
between the global and the local context.

They are of utmost importance in achieving the six goals of education for
all (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on which the United
Nations agreed in 2000. As factors of social integration, languages
effectively play a strategic role in the eradication of extreme poverty and
hunger (MDG 1); as supports for literacy, learning and life skills, they are
essential to achieving universal primary education (MDG 2); the combat
against HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (MDG 6) must be waged in the
languages of the populations concerned if they are to be reached; and the
safeguarding of local and indigenous knowledge and know-how with a view to
ensuring environmental sustainability (MDG 7) is intrinsically linked to
local and indigenous languages.

Moreover, cultural diversity is closely linked to linguistic diversity, as
indicated in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and its
action plan (2001), the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage and the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the
Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005).

However, within the space of a few generations, more than 50% of the 7,000
languages spoken in the world may disappear. Less than a quarter of those
languages are currently used in schools and in cyberspace, and most are
used only sporadically. Thousands of languages – though mastered by those
populations for whom it is the daily means of expression – are absent from
education systems, the media, publishing and the public domain in general.

We must act now as a matter of urgency. How? By encouraging and developing
language policies that enable each linguistic community to use its first
language, or mother tongue, as widely and as often as possible, including
in education, while also mastering a national or regional language and an
international language. Also by encouraging speakers of a dominant language
to master another national or regional language and one or two international
languages. Only if multilingualism is fully accepted can all languages find
their place in our globalized world.

UNESCO therefore invites governments, United Nations organizations, civil
society organizations, educational institutions, professional associations
and all other stakeholders to increase their own activities to foster
respect for, and the promotion and protection of all languages,
particularly endangered languages, in all individual and collective
contexts.

Whether it be through initiatives in the fields of education, cyberspace or
the literate environment; be it through projects to safeguard endangered
languages or to promote languages as a tool for social integration; or to
explore the relationship between languages and the economy, languages and
indigenous knowledge or languages and creation, it is important that the
idea that “languages matter!” be promoted everywhere.

The date of 21 February 2008, that of the ninth International Mother
Language Day, will have a special significance and provide a particularly
appropriate deadline for the introduction of initiatives to promote
languages.

Our common goal is to ensure that the importance of linguistic diversity and
multilingualism in educational, administrative and legal systems, cultural
expressions and the media, cyberspace and trade, is recognized at the
national, regional and international levels.

The International Year of Languages 2008 will provide a unique opportunity
to make decisive progress towards achieving these goals.



Koïchiro Matsuura