Indigenous communities demand legislation to protect mother tongues (fwd link)

[Phil Cash Cash]

Indigenous communities demand legislation to protect mother tongues
By *Belinda Torres-Leclercq  <http://santiagotimes.cl/author/belinda/>*
Published On: Fri, Feb 21st, 2014

Across a country dominated by Spanish, indigenous people unite on
International Mother Language Day to prevent further extinction of Chile’s
oldest languages.


Indigenous communities around the country held events in recognition of
their native tongues Friday, as speakers of Chile’s oldest languages
struggle to prevent their oral traditions fading from memory.

>From workshops in La Serena to marches in Temuco, descendants of the
country’s first inhabitants marked UNESCO’s International Mother Language
Day, established in 1999 to commemorate three students in Dhaka,
Bangladesh, who were shot and killed by police in 1952 while demonstrating
for the recognition of their native Bengali language.

Participants stressed that promoting the use of native languages among the
young in Chile’s indigenous communities is just one aspect of the fight to
prevent the extinction of the five native languages that remain in the
country.

Access full article below:
http://santiagotimes.cl/indigenous-communities-demand-legislation-protect-mother-tongues/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20140224/ef7e8dce/attachment.htm>