One World and One Language

Languages are dying out around the globe through globalisation, social change, a shift in populations from rural areas to cities, and often well-intentioned education in national languages and national cultures rather than local indigenous languages and traditions. Of the 6,500 languages estimated by UNESCO to be still in use, only 11 are spoken by half the world’s population, and 95 percent of the languages are spoken by five percent of the global population.

A new project, the World Oral Literature Project, led by anthropologist Dr Mark Turin of the University of Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, aims to preserve the linguistic diversity being lost as elders die and young people turn to the national languages taught in schools and used by the media. The project is recording and documenting languages that face the prospect of dying out, with the goal of preserving their poems, chants, stories, and anything else that can be recorded.

With individuality , freedom of expression and private communications  already deemed to be under threat , it has never been more important to ensure that native tongues continue to be used.  Is a time coming when , for reasons of ‘national security and to prevent terrorism and/or crime’ we are forced to communicate in one legitimate tongue?

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