Happy International Mother Language Day

Today, February 21, is International Mother Language Day, first proclaimed in 1952 as "Language Movement Day" by Dhaka University students in Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) who were protesting suppression of their Bengali language. Police and military forces opened fire, killing many young people in attendance.

Dhaka University students today mark the 60th anniversary of their fellow students' sacrifice of their lives for their mother tongue, and millions of citizens will leave flowers at the Language Martyr's Monument (Shahid Minar).

Since 2007 Cultural Survival's Endangered Languages Program has built national collaborations and networks in the United States, with hundreds of tribal language preservation and revitalization programs, to educate the U.S. Congress annually (2007-2011) about the critical importance of federal language funding via the Esther Martinez Initiative and the Native American Languages Acts of 1990 and 1992. Guided by the expert advice of Indigenous linguists, speakers & learners from the Alutiiq, Euchee, Northern Arapaho, Sac and Fox, and Wampanoag communities we have helped local language immersion programs raise over $1 million to support master apprentice projects, youth and family camps, and to pay for language teacher salaries and classroom supplies.

In 2013, Cultural Survival continues to support and promote locally based, tribally controlled language revitalization efforts aimed at training new generations of fluent speakers, and to continue to raise the profile of the international language endangerment crisis facing the world's 7,000 mother tongues-the majority of them Indigenous-we have formed new international partnerships aimed at bringing rich perspectives on language loss and revitalization to a global audience through an international radio series currently in production.

On this International Mother Language Day we hope you will stand with Cultural Survival in strengthening our support for these and forthcoming efforts to promote and contribute to the local revitalization of the world's knowledge base--our mother tongues.
 

6 things you can do on International Mother Language Day.
 

1. Take Action: Send a message to the Guatemalan congress in support of Indigenous language radio and freedom of speech. 

In Guatemala, since 2005, we have supported a network of more than 80 volunteer-run community radio stations. Unlike Indigenous-controlled radio stations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, US, who receive federal support, community radio in Guatemala is still illegal under national telecommunications laws, though rights to Indigenous-language media are guaranteed in the constitution and in international human rights instruments like the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
 

Now, a new bill in the Guatemalan congress,  Bill 4479, proposes a reform in the criminal code that would sanction the imprisonment of individual actors and representatives of unlicensed stations, effectively criminalizing community radio with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.  

 

 

2. Read our latest issue of the Cultural Survival Quarterly on Community Radio's Role in Indigenous Language Revitalization.  

Indigenous language loss is occurring all over the world. Concerned communities are using many methods including community radio as an effective tool in revitalizing their languages.

 

  

3. Send an audio postcard in five Native American languages from OurMotherTongues.org.  

Introduce others to America's first languages via email or Facebook.  Speakers and learners at the Alutiiq, Crow, Eastern Cherokee, Lakota, Navajo (Diné)and Yuchi (Euchee) language programs offer beautiful images of cultural events and practices dependent on future generations speaking today's endangered tribal languages.

     

 

  

4.  Watch scenes from  WE STILL LIVE HERE (Âs Nutayuneân).  

Celebrate the power of dreams, "leaving children possibilities," and meet the nearly twenty year-old Wopanaak Language Reclamation Project, which is "bringing language home" to the Wampanoag Nation of southeastern Massachusetts after many generations passed without fluent speakers.  Order copies of the film for personal, institutional, or activist use at

Makepeace Productions, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting WLRP.  

  

5. Be Social! Please share this message by forwarding and posting on Facebook and Twitter.    

  

6. Make a gift today to support the work of Cultural Survival.