Kazakhstan to mark International Mother Language Day on Feb. 21

[Harold Schiffman]

Kazakhstan to mark International Mother Language Day on Feb. 21
15.02.2009 12:22
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Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, Feb. 14/ Trend News, R. Mashadihasanli/
Kazakhstan will mark International Mother Language Day on Feb. 21,
Almaty City Administration told Trend News. February 21 was proclaimed
International Mother Language Day by the 33rd session of the UNESCO
General Conference on November 1999. It has been marked since Feb. 21,
2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.
The International Mother Language Day's key objective is to prevent
languages from vanishing given the fact that at least two languages
disappear in a month nowadays.

Over 100,000 people are required to speak certain kind language so
that it will survive. Since time immemorial, variety of languages were
born and died out without leaving any track. The up-to-date
technologies hinder national minorities to get their language
recognized worldwide as a language not used on internet "does not
exists" for the modern world. According to the French Academy of
Sciences, the mankind speaks in almost 3,000 languages today.

The New York population alone speaks in 75 languages. The indigenous
tribes and nations of America who were mercilessly shot by Europeans
who flowed into the continent in large numbers once, speak in their
own languages and dialects. Over 700 of these languages lack writing.

The Chinese language has dozens of dialects. Seven major languages are
so different that some linguists consider them to be kindred
languages. Chinese people from different provinces and cities do not
almost understand each-other's languages. There are around 70 nations
in Vietnam each of whom has their own languages and dialects. Indian
is a more multilingual country. According to the 1931census, there are
203 languages in the country. The 1951 census take into account
dialects, so the variety of languages exceeded 700. The Indian states
have 14 official languages. Over 10 million people speak in each of
these languages. Over 30 of these languages have their own writing and
even alphabet.

There are about 40 ethnic communities in Philippines. Only 17 of them
are major languages. There are numerous of ethnic groups and languages
in Africa. The Western Africa has 126 "major languages" let alone
dialects and accents. The Chinese is mother language of 1,113,000,000
people. This is twice as much as the figure for the English language –
372 million. According to the American calculations, in 2050, the
number of the Chinese-speaking population will reach 1, 384,000,000,
Hind and Urdu-speaking population – 556 million and English-speaking
population – 508 million. The English language is followed by Spanish
and Arabic with 486 million and 482 million respectively.

In 2001, the UNESCO adopted Universal Declaration on Cultural
Diversity. Its aims to have a significant impact on humanising
globalization and making it more culturally sensitive. The Declaration
supports cultural diversity, cultural rights and the role of culture
in development. It calls for equality of all cultures, protection of
cultural heritage, respect for cultural rights and promoting
intercultural dialogue.

http://news-en.trend.az/print.shtml?newsid=1425016&lang=en

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