INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF LANGUAGES (2008)
As per Resolution No. 52/23 (November 27, 1997) of the United Nations General Assembly,
there is a prevailing policy on Multilingualism recalling the earlier
Resolution No. 50/11 (November 2, 1995). It requests the Secretary
General to submit during the 54th session a comprehensive
report on the implementation of Resolution No 50/11. And likewise, it
also includes Multilingualism as part of the General Assembly’s agenda
for the session.
The implementation of
UN’s Multilingualism policy is still binding up to now. This can be
observed during its Plenary Sessions and General Assemblies wherein
delegates are encouraged to express themselves using their native
tongue. Clearly, this policy shows that the UN sees cultural and
linguistic diversity not as a threat to diplomacy and understanding,
but rather as human rights that must be respected in order for nations
to bridge themselves towards spiritual unity as members of the human
race. This also avoids the prevalence of a dominant language or culture
base which most often than not, leads to hegemony and cultural
oppression which in turn leads to misunderstanding. Besides, a good
number of languages die everyday in the name of linguistic uniformity. There is then a need to reverse this phenomenon.
Even if language is
said to be arbitrary, the legislature is still a powerful state
apparatus that could greatly influence and spell either the death or
survival of the various languages. The UN seems to be on the right
track in this regard just by crafting Multilingualism as a policy. In
fact, UNESCO declared this year to be the International Year of Languages with the slogan: “Languages Matter!”
Although UNESCO
cannot fund all of the pro-linguistic diversity projects being
implemented around the globe, it encourages local initiatives. It also
has a listing of some of the most important cultural and linguistic enterprises. The list includes Dalityapi Unpoemed’s Makata, a multilingual poetry site; and this blogger’s ‘Pagsasatubuanan Modernistang Poetikang Bikolnon’, a work on Bikolnon poetics written in the Bikol-Naga language.
It is a ray of hope
to see Philippine based projects making it in UNESCO’s IYL list. It is
a known fact that the country’s Constitution deems the other Philippine
languages as mere auxiliaries to English and Tagalog/Filipino. And the
prevailing policy on language in the academe is that of “Bilingualism” and not “Multilingualism”. Even with the CHED
Memorandum Order No. 44 there is yet a dearth of regional literature in
classroom and campus discourses. The way to go it seems is by local and
individual/group initiatives from the private sector.
The Dalityapi
Unpoemed has sponsored poetry readings in Manila campuses and continues
to accept poetry contributions written in the various Philippine
languages. While this blogger’s work on Bikolnon poetics, as it is
written in a regional language is hoped to fill the scarcity of
materials written in the language. Not to mention the need for more
works under the genre of literary criticism to provide critical
perspectives with regard Bikolnon literary aesthetics.
http://www.hagbayon.wordpress.com
