Welcoming 2008 is welcoming the UNESCO International Year of Languages. For people like us who care about languages, it is an opportunity to have ourselves be heard by a larger audience. This opportunity will be realised by our own efforts as the UNESCO supportive material cannot be found yet on their website.
When 2008 allows us to promote our efforts for languages, it will help when we collaborate. There is too much for a single person, a single organisation to do. We will make a difference when we prod UNESCO to be successful. We will make a difference when we promote other programs like SignWriting. We will make a difference when we make sure that our own projects do well and integrate with others. But most of all, we will make a difference when our message is communicated as widely as possible; languages are important and deserve attention.
I wish that at the end of this year we will be satisfied with what we, as a group, have achieved.
Thanks,
Gerard
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Hi Gerard, you make some excellent points. Integrating or at least being aware of each others' activities on languages & linguistic diversity is essential, and IYL 2008 seems as good an international platform for that as we are going to get.
UNESCO for its part may need prompting in some areas (remembering recent WLDC correspondence on a planned event), but I have the impression from observing International Mother Language Day that whatever their strengths, marketing is not prominent among them. I think support is an operant term here, and that at the same time, civil society organizations shouldn't wait on UNESCO to launch IYL-related initiatives.
Two links of possible interest:
1) An page chez UNESCO at http://tinyurl.com/27hcef where one can submit info IYL projects
2) I've added a link to this entry to a list of blogs that mention IYL 2008 at http://donosborn.org/iyl/index.php/Main/BloggingIYL .
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