The Third Global Seminar on Linguistic Diversity, Globalization and Development Opens at the BA
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The BA witnessed on Sunday, 28 November 2010, the opening of the Third Global Seminar on Linguistic Diversity, Globalization and Development held under the auspices of the UNESCO Department of Public Information, Linguamón-House of Languages and Roberto Marinho Foundation.
The seminar commenced with a message from Mr. Tarek Sharkawi, Director of UNESCO Egypt, delivered by Ms. Joei Springer from UNESCO. In his message, Sharkawi described language as a contributor to peace and security and a key transmitter of knowledge to different peoples and generations. He stressed the importance of linguistic diversity, especially that research states that half of the world languages will disappear by 2050.
Mr. Hugo Baretto, Secretary General of Roberto Marinho Foundation, Brazil, quoted an established Portuguese poet who once said "language is our homeland". One dreams, loves and hates in one's own mother tongue, reaffirming our commitment to preserve and celebrate our heritage and identity. “In such a globalized climate in which we live, the challenge to preserve the mother tongue is even greater. Just as nature, language should be preserved; it is the air of our culture and the row material of communication and education”, said Baretto.
Linguamón Director, Antoni Mir, sees language as an opportunity rather than a challenge; a bridge rather than a barrier; and a solution rather than a problem. He believes that the history of human kind is indeed the history of linguistic diversity. The Digital Revolution is also a multi-lingual revolution. In July 2010, for example, the most widely used languages on Facebook ware Portuguese, Arabic and Spanish. Languages also mean business and one example would be Hollywood dubbing films into Indian and Russian.
Kiyo Akasaka, UN Under Secretary General for Communication and Public Information, spoke about the multi-lingual cyberspace. In the few coming years, English language may not be as dominate on the Internet as it was thought. Internet content in English has dropped form 80% in 1996 to only 40% in 2008. Social networks are also becoming more and more multi-lingual.
On behalf of Amr Moussa, Secretary General of the League of Arab States (LAS), Ambassador Mohamed Sobeih spoke of linguistic diversity in the Arab world. He said that the diversity of dialects adds to the richness of languages and cultures and added that LAS is willing to support any initiative or joint project preserving linguistic diversity.
Ambassador Aly Maher, BA Special Advisor, described Egypt as a crossroad to cultures and languages, and Alexandria as a multi-cultural multi-lingual city. He maintained that the BA strongly believes in multi-culturalism and multi-lingualism as essential contributors to preserving identities and cultures of people. He added that language is a set of words, including verbs, which at the end represent actions.
It is worth mentioning that this Global Seminar seeks to initiate dialogue on the importance of media, broadcasting and new technologies for linguistic diversity.
Live webcast of all the Seminar proceedings will be available through the BA Webcast Service here.