Page 682 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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In 1999, UNESCO proclaimed 21 February International Mother Language Day, a day to celebrate and promote mother tongues and multilingual education, a day to celebrate the world’s nearly 6,000 languages as shared heritage of humanity and a day to preserve the linguistic traditions throughout the world that may be in danger of dying out. Linguists in fact have been alerting the international community that at least 40 per cent of these languages are expected to die out during this century. Our own Indigenous languages are not immune to this threat.
I also note that, as part of International Mother Language Day, on 21 February 2008, there was a national Indigenous languages forum held in Canberra by the Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages, FATSIL. The forum concluded in Canberra on Friday, 22 February 2008. I commend their website—www.fatsil.org.au—for further information.
In the wording of her motion, Ms Porter notes that the ACT government recognises the importance of language education. Indeed, I understand that the importance of language education was a major concern of those attending the multicultural summit held in August last year and it is encouraging to see that this issue is at the forefront of the recently released draft multicultural strategy 2009-2012.
By celebrating International Mother Language Day, we are also striving to contribute to the protection of the world’s cultural diversity. I quote from David Crystal, one of the world’s foremost authorities on language, about the importance of language diversity and the need to preserve languages that are in danger:
Language diversity is the equivalent of human diversity. The human race has been so successful on the planet because of its ability to adapt to an enormous range of circumstances. I think language is the intellectual equivalent of our biological capabilities. It’s so important, first to be able to keep our minds busy, as it were, and one of the ways in which we can do this is by seeing how each language captures a vision of the world in a different way. Every time we lose a language, we lose one vision of the world.
On the local front, here in Canberra, I am also aware that there are many small community groups who consistently fail in their attempts to secure funding through the grants process. Language programs are vitally important for the smaller groups, particularly in the case of the smaller African and Pacific Island communities, in order to maintain their cultural heritage and identity. This is even more important in the case of our younger members of the community who are in danger of losing some of this cultural identity.
The issue of language education was at the forefront of the opposition’s multicultural policy in the lead-up to last year’s election. We do recognise that an additional $50,000 per year at least is needed to double the funding for the ACT community languages grant program and we do recognise that broader criteria are needed to improve the community grants distribution process to ensure that these smaller community groups do not miss out on crucial funding.
I do hope that this is another of the opposition’s policies that will be copied by the government and I do urge the government to act to ensure there is a significant
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