Episode 46

Language is Everything: Talking Language Activism with Wikitongues

00:00:00
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01:12:48

June 19th, 2016

1 hr 12 mins 48 secs

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About this Episode

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"This is one of the most important things that we can do as humans - to constantly strive to learn about things that we don't understand."

An organization dedicated to raising awareness of language diversity.

We all know that language is important, but after listening to this episode you'll be amazed at the enormous variety of perspectives on this topic. Non-profit organization Wikitongues looks at languages from all points of view - as a metaphor for life.

What do we lose when a language dies?

There are communities that lose their ability to lose their own language - when a language is lost, the individuals in that community lose a part of who they are. Language death is both a loss of history and a loss of identity.

If you oppose racism, mysogyny, genocide and oppresion, you must support language diversity!

And if you thought language discrimination was a thing of the past, think again: Languages like Occitan and Cornish are experiencing it right now.

Some cool languages documented on Wikitongues:

Note for pedants: In the interview, the Universal Declaration for Human Rights was mentioned, but the speaker may have meant the Universal Declaration for Linguistic Rights. I researched this but could not find the exact quote in either one. If you know more details, go ahead and leave a comment or itunes review to help us out.

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