International Mother Language Day – 21 February 2011
by A. Drame
Linguistic diversity is dwindling fast. Already, half of the world’s 6,000 languages are endangered, according to official UNESCO figures.
While the Internet is now the major driving force when it comes to the spreading of information, knowledge and culture, it is dominated by very few languages, like English, French, Spanish or Chinese. Even languages which are spoken by millions of people, like Kiswahili, Tamil, Hindi are virtually not present in the World Wide Web.
This fact has two major effects: it promotes the dominance of these languages as de-facto global linguas francas; it also still prevents the Internet to develop its full potential as global medium and repository of knowledge and culture. New information technologies these days have ventured into the remotest places of the Earth and reach more people than ever before in history. However, lacking content in “smaller” or less dominant languages hampers the possibilities that this development could open to promote democracy, equal opportunities and development, and to prevent discrimination. All because it still does not allow access to vital information, to education and resources for millions of people with limited knowledge of these few dominant languages.
The neglect of “smaller” languages in the new technologies has yet another adverse effect. While technological development and the evolution of the Internet proceeds ever more rapidly, those languages which miss out to follow suit now, risk to lose more and more of their functions ever faster. With increasing “monolingualisation” and simultaneous permeation of the Web to various social and geographical regions, even languages which may seem healthy and strong today may lose their ability to evolve and develop further through this medium.
At the same time, many contributions from speakers of other languages will not be heard now and in future. Many ideas and innovations that can best be expressed in a person’s mother tongue will thus be lost. The result is a true pauperization of our emerging knowledge societies.
The true danger is that the process reinforces itself to the advantage of some and on the costs of many others. And once gone it is hard to revive.
UNESCO set the theme for this year “The information and communication technologies for the safeguarding and promotion of languages and linguistic diversity” to highlight the new technologies’ enormous potential for safeguarding, documenting and promoting the use of mother languages.
TermNet supports this effort and, therefore, calls for joint efforts to promote linguistic diversity in the new media for the mutual benefit of all.
Terminology Blog 
terminologyblog
Feb 21, 2011 @ 10:55:15
My friend Irtaza from Pakistan just wrote the following:
(I feel) very proud (of my mother language).
Its name is Saraikee, one of the very old language of South Asia, On internet? I donot think so…
I did not know much (if anything – my ignorance!!) about Saraikee, so he sent me this, although he says the numbers might be exaggerated and more realisticallyaround 20-24 million:
http://www.seraikigeet.com/seraikistan.html
Seraiki is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan and the first language of more than 80 million people in the subcontinent. Among those 50 Million are in Pakistan and 30 Million are in India.
Seraiki is the 61st largest language out o…f more than 6000 languages in the world. It has a very rich culture and is the representative language of Sindh Valley Civilization.
The main Seraiki speaking areas are Multan, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Dera Ismail Khan and most parts of Sargodha division. Seraiki is also spoken widely in Sindh and Baluchistan provinces of Pakistan. It has many sweet dialects and is considered as the language of love.
Seraiki is the language of love and literature. Rich cultural context and diversity of expression in the language have enabled Seraiki poets and prose writers to produce literature masterpieces. Seraiki poetry has different themes. Love for beloved and love for land can be identified as major ones. Sufi poets have used this language not only to speak to people but also to God. Seraiki people have a natural flair for poetry and literature. Most of the Seraiki literature is unrecorded for the reason that no formal patronage has been provided to poets and writers. Before the inception of Pakistan, Seraiki was written in Devnagri script and converting to Arabic/ Persian script resulted in the loss of a substantial part of literature.
During last two centuries, Seraiki motherland has produced a lot of legendary poets. Khawaja Ghulam Farid, Sachal Sar Mast and Shah Latif are some of famous Seraiki poets which are known world wide for their universal message of love.History Of Seraiki This is the first web site about seraiki language and culture on World Wide Web to promote seraiki language and culture all across the world.
seraiki is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan and the first language of more than 80 million people in the subcontinent. seraiki is the 61st largest language out of more than 6000 languages in the world. It has a very rich culture and is the representative language of Sindh Valley Civilization. The main seraiki speaking areas are Multan, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Dera Ismail Khan and most parts of Sargodha division. seraiki is also spoken widely in Sindh and Baluchistan provinces of Pakistan. It has many sweet dialects and is considered as the language of love.
seraiki is the language of love and literature. Rich cultural context and diversity of expression in the language have enabled seraiki poets and prose writers to produce literature masterpieces. seraiki poetry has different themes. Love for beloved and love for land can be identified as major ones. Sufi poets have used this language not only to speak to people but also to God. seraiki people have a natural flair for poetry and literature. Most of the seraiki literature is unrecorded for the reason that no formal patronage has been provided to poets and writers. Before the inception of Pakistan, seraiki was written in Devnagri script and converting to Arabic/ Persian script resulted in the loss of a substantial part of literature.During last two centuries, seraiki motherland has produced a lot of legendary poets. Khawaja Ghulam Farid, Sachal Sarmast and Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai are some of famous seraiki poets which are known world wide for their universal message of love.
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May 05, 2013 @ 16:12:19
I almost never leave a response, but I looked at
a few of the remarks on this page Information technologies the focus of International
Mother Language Day 2011 | Terminology Blog.
I do have 2 questions for you if you do not mind.
Is it simply me or does it look like a few of these responses look as
if they are written by brain dead people? 😛 And,
if you are posting at other social sites,
I would like to keep up with everything new you have to post.
Would you list of all of all your public sites like your
linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?