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Poll: Did you know that February 21 is the International Mother Language Day?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ScriptArch
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Uruguay
Local time: 01:52
German to Spanish
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A constellation of mother tongues... Feb 11, 2007

marki wrote:
I don't know that February 21 is the International Mother Language Day? But I am happy to know it as a translator. I think one has to respect his/her mother language even though he/she also uses other language everyday.


Hi Marki,
Thanks for taking part in this forum.
Fantastic that a person from Indonesia has brought forward this statement: "to respect one's mother language even though one uses other language everyday".
Your case is paradigmatic: Indonesia, the 4th most populated country in the world, and with a unique national motto: "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" (from Old Javanese, "Unity in Diversity").
According to Ethnologue, there must be at least 700 languages spoken there!
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Indonesia

Tomás has already stated the risks of being "excessively tolerant" with minority languages - how could you consider the situation of all that diversity in Indonesia, in particular?
Of course there are some important languages, such as Bahasa Indonesia, Javanese, Balinese, Sundanese, etc. which will last for very, very long, and on the other hand, several endangered languages who are bound to die out, no matter how hard the linguists try to preserve them. But just in case, is it positive or negative if they try to keep, say, 300 languages alive in the same country?


 
ScriptArch
ScriptArch  Identity Verified
Uruguay
Local time: 01:52
German to Spanish
+ ...
Hi Lubain Feb 11, 2007

Lubain Masum wrote:
International Mother Language Day proclaimed by UNESCO is on 21st February commemorating the language movement of Bangladeshi Bengali in 1952...


Great that a linguist from the "Indian subcontinent" is taking part in this debate.
Your region has one of the greatest linguistic, religious and cultural diversities in the world. And a strong and long tradition in that, too!

You talk about "Bangladeshi Bengali". I assume that you are trying to differentiate it from "Indian Bengali". I respect that difference, if there is such.
But let me introduce another topic - it has nothing to do with Bengali proper, but with written systems of languages.

These days we are starting to see different alphabets online. On the same text we can see, for instance: an explanation in English with the Greek ethymology of the word and some Chinese ideographs showing a different example. Wikipedia is a very easy way to see it, to name one.

On the one hand: computer science is developing fast, and with Unicode and other informatic weapons we are becoming step by step able to write many different alphabets on the very same text. This is in any case very helpful.

But on the other hand: what about trying a Universal Writing System?
Not a universal language - but an international alphabet. An alphabet that can be used to write English, Bengali, Chinese, Hmong, Tibetan, Swahili, Arabic, Persian, etc. etc. etc.
That anybody from anywhere in the world be able to read aloud any text, any personal name, any place name, and to do it correctly from the beginning?

I am a native speaker of Spanish - and (if we haven't studied another language) we find it messy to pronounce German, Polish, Indian, Arabic, Chinese... names and place-names. And I believe this is the case for almost everybody in the world who can read and write.

This is of course a theoretical debate - and perhaps it deserves a separate forum, I think...

In any case: thanks for your attention and your goodwill!!!


 
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Poll: Did you know that February 21 is the International Mother Language Day?






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