In this article we would like to introduce the UNESCO project to safeguard the world’s linguistic diversity. The aim of the project is to raise awareness about language endangerment and it intends to do this through the “Endangered Languages Programme”. According to UNESCO a language is in danger when its speakers cease to use it, use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains and cease to pass it on from one generation to the next.
According to an estimate a recent study* – about 97 percent of the world’s people speaks about 4 percent of the world’s languages; conversely, about 96 percent of the world’s languages are spoken by about 3 percent of the world’s people. UNESCO warns that if experts and governments do not take appropriate safeguarding measures, over 6,000 spoken languages will disappear by the end of the century, especially unwritten languages.
UNESCO, however, believes that this process is not irreversible and can be avoided by means of targeted language policies. For this reason, in February 2009 it launched an online edition of the atlas of endangered languages, “Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger”, replacing the famous “Red Book of Endangered Languages”.
The Atlas is collecting a comprehensive list of world languages currently facing extinction. This updated version of the “Red Book” analyses all world languages, contains more information and, taking into account the continuous evolution of the status of a language, provides opportunities for users to submit online feedback. UNESCO encourages and supports linguists and governments wishing to maintain or revitalise endangered languages and pass them on to younger generations. In this document UNESCO explains how, using nine factors, it assesses the vitality of a language or degree of endangerment and indicates attitudes and policies that governments need to follow.
The six degrees of endangerment are listed below in a table which determines the vitality of a language based on the first of the nine factors, Intergenerational Language Transmission:
Other factors are:
2) Absolute number of speakers
3) Proportion of speakers within the total population
4) Shifts in domains of language use
5) Response to new domains and media
6) Availability of materials for language education and literacy,
7) Governmental and institutional language attitudes and policies, including official status and use
8 ) Community members’ attitudes towards their own language
9) Type and quality of documentation
According to the UNESCO assessment, the Sicilian language is classified as follows:
Vitality: Vulnerable
Number of speakers: 5 million (estimate based on various sources for Italy; more in émigré communities).
Location(s): Sicily (Sicilia), southern and central Calabria and southern Apulia (Puglia); a large number of émigré communities. Important communities where Sicilian is spoken exist in the North of Italy, Belgium, Germany, the USA, Argentina and Australia.
Given the above points, “Times of Sicily” believes it speaks for Sicilians in saying that they hope that the Council of Europe, the Italian Government and the “Regione Sicilia” will enforce explicit policies to safeguard and revitalise the Sicilian language. We will act as a watchdog for any actions promised and not taken and report on it. In “Times of Sicily”, we will contribute to Sicilian language publishing as much as possible with articles and materials in all domains of language use, from poetry to business.
Giovanni Morreale
“Language diversity is essential to the human heritage. Each and every language embodies the unique cultural wisdom of a people. The loss of any language is thus a loss for all humanity” – – UNESCO
“Un populu – diventa poviru e servu – quannu ci arrubbanu a lingua – addutata di patri: – è persu pi sempri.”
“A nation [as Buttitta defines Sicily] becomes poor and a slave when it is deprived of the language adopted by its forefathers: it is lost forever.” – – IGNAZIO BUTTITTA, Sicilian Poet
* “Bernard 1996: par. 142”
May we reprint the article on our website “l’altrasicilia-usa.org”?
Hello Professore Cannonito. Pls feel free to reprint this article on L’Altra Sicilia USA. We will be grateful if you can write the source being https://www.timesofsicily.com on the bottom of the article. We are very honored you are reading ToSicily and we wish you can send some contribution when you have time. All the best!
Times of Sicily Staff
[…] https://www.timesofsicily.com – Today, 1:06 […]
I feel lost and isolated, here I am reading an article on a Sunday evening about the near death of my ancestor’s language. I read a mere three responses to an astronomically significant article, while mindcraft and angry bird articles are read and responded to by as many as 20,000,000 people.
Hi Steve,
as I wrote to Angelo, let’s not get discouraged. Here is Sicily, Sicilian is still much alive! We just need to push politicians to effectively put it back in the schools and have Sicilians studying, Sicilian language and Culture… as opposed to ONLY ITALIAN. FOr this we need someone who takes the lead and find all means to create an organisations that writes and goes to visit the Sicilian Government and push them to introduce Sicilian at school.
Ciao
Giovanni
Giovanni:
What can we and othe siculophiles in the U.S. do to prevent la lingua bedda from becomong extinct?
Hi Angelo,
I think you are doing already a GREAT job. Many many Sicilian living abroad have helped in this noble cause. Steven is an example. I admire Prof. Cipolla works and I’m helping him to “advertise” his books. I think we should create a more formal group, that apart from acting from a cultural point of you, would act politically. We need to write and push politicians in Sicily to SERIOUSLY preserve the language and Sicilian culture in the schools. We need to track the progress and the commitment they take (if they commit). The language needs to be “saved” here in Sicily and that’s why we need to push people here in Sicily. Unfortunately I don’t have time to take on board this task, but I can surely helping with Times of Sicily to publish any article/news that help to this goal. We do have already a section dedicated to language.
All the best,
Giovanni
Thanks Giovanni and Angelo for the interest and encouragement. Defending a just cause is a lifestyle and at times very frustrating and exhausting. Many times I have said to myself, “what I am trying to do here”? We may not see the fruit of our labor in our lifetime, but at least we can keep the movement alive and hope that the next generation continues to press on. Grazii me frati Siciliani e W la Sicilia,e la Cultura, la identifa, l’amuri di li beddi genti, li me amici dda e parenti, pi sempri e sempri……