Why Languages

MatterMeeting Millennium Development Goals

through local languages
 “Languages are indeed
essential to the identity of Millennium Development Goals Why Languages Matter
groups and individuals and
In 2000 these goals were officially adopted by 189 United Nations member Meeting Millennium Development Goals through local languages
to their peaceful coexistence.
states with the agreement to achieve them by 2015.

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They constitute a strategic
factor of progress towards
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) focus the work of advocates,
1
sustainable development
and a harmonious Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger aid workers, governments and NGOs as they partner with local communities.
relationship between Language-based development plays a significant role in giving communities
the global and the local
context. They are of utmost
2 Achieve universal primary education the tools to work out steps to meet these goals.
importance in achieving
the six goals of Education
3 Promote gender equality and empower women
Many of the poorest people speak mother tongues that are not national
or international languages. Poverty, lack of access to primary education,
for All and the Millennium
Development Goals on which 4 Reduce child mortality inequality and disease are daily challenges for them.

Ü
ƒƒ Can the development of minority languages become key to helping
the United Nations agreed
in 2000.” 5 Improve maternal health people create their own way of successfully meeting the challenges
6
Koïchiro Matsuura in their lives?
Director General, UNESCO Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
ƒƒ Can writing systems for mother tongues and multilingual education
7 Ensure environmental sustainability become tools for people to build a better present and a better future?

8 Develop a global partnership for development

ƒƒ Are the long-term results worth the investment of money and time?
The answer to each of these questions is yes!
Throughout the world, communities are discovering that by using
their languages in new arenas of their lives, they can begin discovering
solutions to the challenges stated in the MDGs. SIL International assists in
strengthening language communities worldwide.
Illustrated on these pages are some practical examples of how
languages matter.

Language-based development is a
series of ongoing planned actions that
a language community takes to ensure
that their language continues to serve
their changing social, cultural, political,
economic and spiritual needs and goals.
Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger “In order to reduce
poverty, the adult
education program

A S
should be mediated in
languages that enable
the learners to be
Azanga, the local literacy supervisor for the North Ngbandi language group Sokpè, a farmer in Togo, worked hard for years struggling to provide for his confident to participate
of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was encouraged to see that his years family. While attending the Ifè adult literacy class in his village, Kotsadjo, in the discussions
of hard work brought far-reaching benefits. Kamba, chief of the Monzomboli he read an Ifè primer on the topic of managing finances and resources. and activities of their
education and economy.”
village, became the first in his community to attend adult literacy classes in Sokpè was impressed by the story of a farmer who learned the skill of
his mother tongue. After he read in one of the literacy primers that soybeans weaving, which enabled him to supplement farm income. Sokpè put these Mompoloki Bagwasi,
The role of language in adult
are rich in protein, he encouraged everyone in his village to plant them. He management ideas into practice and began breeding chickens and goats in
education and poverty
later learned from another booklet about the components of a proper diet, addition to his farming. The income from his breeding business raised his reduction in Botswana.
and again encouraged his community to eat from each food group daily so annual income and helped pay his children’s school fees. University of Botswana
they could improve their health through nutrition.

Income improvement and hunger relief within ethnolinguistic

communities is achieved when life-changing information is
communicated in a language that people understand well. Higher
literacy rates often result in higher per capita incomes.

Culturally-appropriate
education enables community
members to manage their
development activities and
resulting income and enjoy an
improved quality of life.
Language-based development
is more than literacy—people
learn how to grow better
crops, such as soybeans, and
how to improve their diets.
 Achieve Universal Primary Education “Fifty percent of the world’s
out-of-school children live
in communities where the

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language of schooling is
rarely, if ever, used at home.
This underscores the biggest
Like his nomadic father and grandfather before him, Yousif was a shepherd Primary education programs that begin in the mother tongue help

~
challenge to achieving
in the mountainous terrain of West Asia. And like his ancestors, the continual students gain literacy and numeracy skills more quickly. When taught Education for All (EFA): A
travels limited his access to primary education. Nomadic peoples are often in their local language, students readily transfer literacy skills to official legacy of non-productive
practices that lead to low
illiterate because those wanting education for their children must either sell languages of education, acquiring essential tools for life-long learning. levels of learning and
their flocks and settle in poor urban areas or send their boys away from The results are the growth of self esteem and a community that is better high levels of dropout and
home to attend school. equipped to become literate in languages of wider communication. repetition.”
But Yousif and others in his family began attending an innovative mobile “In Their Own Language…
schooling program. Adults and children started reading and writing in their Education for All”, World Bank
mother tongue and transferred their literacy skills to the national language Education Note, p. 1,
and then to basic English. Evening classes were held only during the summer June 2005
and winter grazing seasons due to seasonal migration. One season, when
Yousif’s family was unable to migrate, he enrolled in a government school;
the teachers were amazed that a nomadic child could read with such fluency.
Even though Yousif had completed only the two-year mobile program, he
was promoted to grade four.

Yousif and his family

attend a mother-
V Victor, a bilingual primary school teacher in the village of Santa Maria
Ocotán, Mexico, wanted to study the effect of mother-tongue education
in his first grade class. He taught his students all of their subjects in
Tepehuan, although most of the teaching materials were in Spanish.
tongue mobile
Another first grade teacher used only Spanish. At the end of the year, the
education program
designed to be test scores on the standardized government tests for the students taught
compatible with the in their mother tongue surpassed those for the students taught only in
seasonal migration of Spanish, even though the tests were in Spanish.
their flocks.

Students’ high learning

competency scores in Spanish,
when taught in Tepehuan,
were compiled for a research
project at the Pedagogical
University of Durango, Mexico.
Learning to read occurs most
easily in the language the
learner speaks best.
 Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women “The learner’s
mother tongue
holds the key to

ƴ
making schooling

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more inclusive for all
disadvantaged groups,
Raised in Huay Chompuu village in Northern Thailand, Fah is the Nearly two-thirds of the world’s 875 million illiterate people are especially for girls and
youngest of five children. She grew up speaking her mother tongue, Bisu, women. In ethnolinguistic communities, boys are often encouraged women.”
and Northern Thai, as well as listening to the Central Thai language on to interact with others in languages of wider communication. Girls, Carol Benson,
television. When Fah started school, however, she struggled with reading however, are typically expected to stay close to home where the local Girls, educational equity
and mother tongue, p.1,
and writing Central Thai. language is often the only language used. Research shows that girls
2005, UNESCO-Bangkok
Then Fah attended a literacy class in her village and learned to read and and women who are educated in languages familiar to them stay in
write Bisu using a Thai-based script. Her Central Thai reading and writing school longer and achieve better results than those who do not get
skills improved dramatically, her confidence rose and her grades at school mother-tongue instruction.
improved. Her sister, a teacher, is convinced that it was the mother-tongue
literacy class that made the difference.
Fah (pictured on left)
is on the cover of

M
the Advocacy Kit for
Promoting Multilingual Margarita knows the impact of losing her mother tongue and her cultural
Education: Including identity. Growing up in a small Andean town in central Peru, she first learned Multilingual education,
the Excluded,
to speak the Quechua of her parents and grandparents. But when she beginning in the
a collaborative
publication of five started attending school, her family insisted she speak only Spanish, even at mother tongue, improves
booklets by UNESCO- home. With difficulty, she learned enough Spanish to complete five years of opportunities for educational
Bangkok and SIL. school before she had to quit to care for her siblings and the family’s sheep. access and achievement for
Undaunted, Margarita studied at night to finish her primary education girls and women.
www2.unescobkk.org/
elib/publications/110/ and beyond, ultimately earning a university degree in psychology. Using
that knowledge and her skills, Margarita founded a volunteer organization
that provides social, psychological and educational help to hundreds of
displaced and sometimes abused Quechua women and children—using
the language they understand best.

Margarita's students grasp

literacy concepts when
interacting with Quechua
alphabet and word charts,
even when used in Spanish-
taught classrooms.
Reduce Child Mortality “One additional year of
education for the female
“Educating girls for six
years or more drastically Improve Maternal Health
population can avert six and consistently
deaths per thousand in improves their prenatal

B T
child mortality rates.“ care, postnatal care and
childbirth survival rates.”
Basile has noticed an improvement in the overall health of John Peasbody, et al. The Soumraye people of Chad conduct a three-year literacy
UNICEF
people in his Waama community in Benin since the advent of Policy and Health:
www.unicef.org/mdg/ program in 37 villages. During the first two years, students
literacy classes in his mother tongue. People used to have long- Implications for Development learn the Soumraye alphabet and gain basic literacy skills. In the
maternal.html
in Asia, 1997, Cambridge,

ढ
term illnesses, and many children died in infancy. But when third year, they concentrate on various reading materials that
England: Cambridge
people learned to read in Waama, they gained access to basic University Press
include booklets about clean water, planting trees, HIV/AIDS
health information in their own language. Mothers learned awareness and prevention, treating and preventing intestinal
the importance of going to health centers for prenatal check- and respiratory illnesses and medicinal use of local plants. One
ups and seeking treatment for illnesses. Many Waama lives are mother who finished the three-year literacy cycle said, “I am
being saved because crucial health and wellness knowledge is learning a lot through the health booklets in Soumraye, and
now available in their mother tongue. I have successfully used local plants to treat some symptoms
such as coughing and diarrhea.”

The mortality rate for children under five years of age is

reduced when information about disease prevention and A mother is better able to care for herself and her family when
treatment is presented in local languages. Conversely, she is literate in her mother tongue and has access to health
poor understanding can lead to dangerous or even fatal information in a language she understands well. Language-
misinformation. Ethnolinguistic communities can combat based development facilitates the introduction of new
diarrhea, malaria and other common illnesses when they concepts and the accurate translation of new terminology.
have the resources and capability to obtain essential
health knowledge.

Health education
is ineffective when
language barriers
prevent access to
essential information.

Soumraye literacy
primers cover a
variety of topics on
practical living.
Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and “Illiteracy does not
directly contribute to the
“Language, knowledge and
the environment have Ensure Environmental
Other Diseases spread of the human- been intimately related
Sustainability
A
immunodeficiency virus throughout human history.

I
(HIV). However, as illiterate This relationship is still
women and men have apparent, especially in
In a culture where information is often relayed through songs, Agus had wondered why ocean tides were now destroying
no access to written indigenous, minority
dance and plays, the people of Papua New Guinea (PNG) are information, they remain and local societies that coastal areas of his Ambai village in Papua, Indonesia, that
receiving life-saving education in a culturally relevant medium. unaware of many… maintain close material had survived intact for generations. Then, during a mother-
A DVD titled Get AIDS—Get Trouble dramatizes how HIV/AIDS issues affecting them that and spiritual ties with
tongue-based development program, he and the community
are increasingly being their environments. Over
affects the family when one member contracts the disease. learned that clearing the mangrove areas had resulted in soil
communicated through generations, these peoples
Produced and performed in one of PNG’s trade languages, printed materials.” have accumulated a erosion. Mangrove ecosystems—among the most productive
Melanesian Pidgin, the DVD has been translated into several Making the Connections: wealth of wisdom about and biologically complex ecosystems—support a wealth of life
local languages. Why Literacy Matters for HIV their environments and its
while providing a natural breakwater between land and sea.
Prevention, 2007, UNESCO functions, management
PNG is vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. Low literacy rates and lack Armed with this information in his own language, Agus
Institute for Lifelong Learning and sustainable use.”
of access to reliable media sources mean that many face this began the daunting process of replanting the mangroves in his
Terralingua
new sickness with misconceptions. A booklet that accompanies community. Recently, a group of Indonesian government
www.terralingua.org
the DVD clearly describes causes, preventative measures, officials visited the island to examine the Ambai development
consequences and the care needed for victims. The booklet program. Their visit opened a dialog about the funding needed
has now been translated and printed in more than 30 PNG to establish a multi-year mangrove revitalization project.
languages. Funding from the National AIDS Council of PNG
has helped to cover printing and distribution costs.

Environmental preservation principles are communicated

between languages through language-based development
People in ethnolinguistic communities are vulnerable to programs and literature production. Deforestation is a
HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases due in part to the lack critical problem worldwide. As local populations learn
of essential information in the mother tongue. Reading appropriate technology while drawing on traditional
materials in local languages that discuss hygiene, nutrition, knowledge of flora and fauna, they meet economic needs
and the prevention and treatment of diseases have proven to while protecting the environment.
be effective in improving general health and life expectancy.
The availability of culturally-relevant information dispels
misconceptions surrounding HIV/AIDS.

Nukna people Studies have shown that

celebrate the new an intact mangrove
HIV/AIDS storybook. system, with its associated
seaward reef and sea grass
beds, will mitigate the
force of a tsunami by up to
80% per 100 meters.
Develop a Global Partnership for Development “In addition to building ICT*
infrastructure, there should
be adequate emphasis on
developing human capacity

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and creating ICT applications
and digital content in
Through a dynamic partnership of various groups local language, where
around the world, speakers of several closely-
related languages of Vietnam now have a font that
Global Script Diversity appropriate, so as to ensure
a comprehensive approach
to building a global
is usable on computers and the Internet. The new Information Society.”
typeface reflects the traditional hand-written Tai
Tunis Commitment, World
Viet script that is used informally in several
Summit on the Information
languages spoken in the northwest provinces of Society
Vietnam and surrounding areas. The fonts originally *Information and Communications
created 20 years ago for this script are incompatible Technology
with current computer systems. Participants at a
UNESCO-sponsored workshop in Vietnam in 2006

s� ��
developed a standardized encoding for the script
with input from ethnolinguistic communities in
Vietnam and immigrant populations in other
countries. Funding came in part from the Script
Encoding Initiative of the University of California at
Berkeley, and the Unicode Consortium accepted
the resulting encoding proposal.

http://scripts.sil.org/TaiHeritage

In cooperation with partners, the http://scripts.sil.org

development of computer-adapted
non-Roman fonts grants access to the
benefits of new technology, which allows
information and communications to be
more widely available.
Multilingual capabilities
open doors to expanded
Global partnerships among ethnolinguistic communities and national
communictions and and international societies require communication and mutual
information access that understanding. Mother-tongue revitalization ensures that a language
implement new technologies. continues to serve the changing goals of its speakers and provides
a bridge for the community to meet its broader multilingual goals
by acquiring a language of wider communication. Language-based
development facilitates the broader exchange of traditional knowledge
as well as making the benefits of global information and communications
technologies available.
 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road
Dallas, Texas 75236-5629 USA
www.sil.org
www.ethnologue.com
www.sil.org/sil/global/
 2008 SIL International

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Language Facts
ƒƒ There are 6,912 languages in use today.
ƒƒ Approximately 100 scripts are used in
the world.
ƒƒ Hundreds of languages still need a
writing system, with one-third needing
a non-Roman or complex script.
ƒƒ Thousands of languages are
endangered when parents no
longer teach their language to their
children and speakers stop using it in
everyday matters.
ƒƒ There are more than 200 known
signed languages for the Deaf. The
grammars and vocabularies are
unrelated to local spoken languages.

The purpose of SIL is to build capacity for

sustainable language-based development
through research, translation, training and
materials development for ethnolinguistic
minority communities. SIL recognizes that
genuine multilingualism promotes unity in
diversity and international understanding.
As a nongovernmental organization, SIL
has special consultative status with the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and with
the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
of the United Nations. SIL is a founding
member of Maaya, the World Network for
Linguistic Diversity.

ENG08