International mother tongue Day, protect your native language

At the dawn of the 16th International Mother Tongue Day (February 21), the United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has issued an important document on language protection aimed at further promoting awareness of language protection, encouraging its member States to formulate comprehensive national language protection policies and promoting the use of multiple languages in cyberspace, Do a good job of protecting the world's linguistic diversity.

According to Professor David Cristel, a British linguist, over the next 100 years, more than 3,000 of the world's more than 6,000 languages will perish and 50% of the cultural heritage will be transformed into clouds. Similarly, John Mackworth, an American linguist who wrote in the Wall Street Journal in January this year, speculated that only 600 of the existing 7000 languages could survive in 2115. At present, more than 1000 languages in the world are critically endangered and critically endangered, and almost every two weeks a language disappears.

International mother tongue Day: further promoting awareness of language protection

Language is the most important communication tool for human beings, and also an important carrier of cultural inheritance, or one of the basic elements of national recognition. Different languages are not just different ways of describing the same things, they often represent different views on these things. Crode Heggo, a French linguist, said: As with historical relics and works of art, language is also a valuable cultural asset left by ancestors, and the disappearance of any language represents immeasurable loss.

The world map of endangered languages, which was drawn by UNESCO for 2009, shows that India has 196 languages that are endangered and is the most threatened language; the second and third countries are the United States and Indonesia, respectively, and the number of endangered languages is 192 and 147.

Australia is the country with the most serious loss of its mother tongue. 95% of the Australian language heritage has been wiped out. Owing to the impact of the colonial movement, the indigenous language had been greatly reduced, and it was now popular with native Australian accent English, which was left by white settlers. Before the white man arrived, Australia had about 250 languages, with dialects, and a total of more than 700, but now there are only less than 50. The cultural carriers that have accumulated through chipped-stories, legends, ballads, poems and riddles-have been severely destroyed by the disappearance of language. However, the Australian Government was aware of the seriousness of the problem in the 70 's and had taken some measures to rescue and protect indigenous languages, and some private foundations had also funded the rescue and protection work of indigenous languages.

In the United States, more than 150 indigenous languages of the Indians have ceased to exist, and the only remaining indigenous language is at risk of extinction-Yuchi is an "isolated" indigenous language that is not linked to any language in the world. The language was used by tens of thousands of people during the civil war, but there are now only 5 users, who are aged 75 or older. Since the 50 's, the United States government and academia have worked on rescuing and protecting indigenous languages since the 50 's, and have achieved some results. At the beginning of last year, President Obama praised the Sioux tribal leaders for their efforts to revive their national language, Sioux (Lakota), when he visited the Native American reserve.

Like many countries in the world, there are some national languages in China that are endangered. According to Professor Sun Hongkai, honorary president of the Chinese Institute of National Languages, several minority languages are already in a state of complete loss of communicative function, such as Manchu, Yu, Hezhe, and Tacitus, and these languages face the most severe inheritance. The Zijun language in Yunnan and Bazai in Taiwan have been listed as critically endangered by UNESCO. The Chinese Government attaches great importance to the protection and development of minority languages, especially to the endangered minority languages to take active rescue measures, the academic community has done a lot of basic work, has achieved a phased results. However, there are still some problems to be solved, such as the investment of funds, the cultivation of personnel, the use of technology and the preservation of data.

In recent years, many countries have made gratifying achievements in the protection of national language, but the current situation of national language protection is still very serious, people need to further improve the importance of national language awareness. As the Chinese scholar Professor Zhouhaizhong said: Nowadays, the weak national language is facing the impact of strong language, globalization, Internet and so on, its social use function is in the danger of weakening or disappearing; therefore, the relevant institutions and linguistic circles should take active and effective measures to rescue endangered national languages; Conducive to the inheritance and development of human civilization, but also conducive to national unity, social stability.