Preserving languages for the future

Courtesy - Sunday Observer By Pramod DE SILVA

A language laboratory

Around 6,000 languages are spoken around the world, but nearly half of them are endangered. Yes, just like flora and fauna, languages too can die! A death of a language signifies the loss of a cultural and linguistic heritage. Is the world doing enough to save these languages, each a unique repository of knowledge and experiences of a particular people?
That is the question which will be on everybody's lips tomorrow, February 21, International Mother Language Day. People all over the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, have a native language. Here in Sri Lanka, our native languages (or mother tongues) are Sinhala and Tamil.
The mother tongue is the language that we learn to recognise and speak from the very early days. We may learn three or four languages later, but we are truly at home only when expressing ourselves in the mother tongue. We are proud of our mother tongue, no matter where in the world we live in.
Languages are indeed a prime treasure of humanity. Although there are more than 6,000 languages on earth, only a few hundred are prominent. English is the undisputed king of languages in the world, followed by Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Spanish and Hindi. Each country is generally associated with a language of its own, though some countries have three to four official languages.

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