It's International Mother Language Day -- send your mother tongue a card

[Dennis Baron]

There's a new post on the Web of Language:

It's International Mother Language Day -- send your mother tongue a card

UNESCO has designated today, Feb. 21, 2009, as the tenth annual  
International Mother Language Day, dedicated to the preservation of  
first languages, heritage languages, and endangered languages  
everywhere.

It's an outgrowth of Language Martyr’s Day in Bangladesh, formerly  
East Pakistan. Language Martyr's Day shows what can happen when a  
country designates an official language while trampling the rights of  
citizens who speak other tongues.

...

This year's celebration of International Mother Language Day in Paris  
will unveil UNESCO's new, interactive endangered languages atlas and  
map. UNESCO is warning that half of the 6,000 – 7,000 languages spoken  
in the world today could disappear by the end of this century, and  
both the UN's Endangered Languages Atlas and UNESCO's related  
Initiative B at bel are committed to recording and preserving those  
languages and promoting both minority language rights and  
multilingualism.

....

find out more about International Mother Language Day on the Web of  
Language:  http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage

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