Today was the International Day of Mother Languages, launching the United Nations International Year of Languages.
It is also the International Year of the Potato. So there you have it, two of life’s necessities, language and spuds! Both sustain us.
At the launch event we had presentations on the status of two of our national languages, on Pacific languages, and community languages. It was the presentation from the Deaf community that particularly made me think. Rachel Noble, who is CEO of the Deaf Association celebrated the status of NZ Sign as our third national language. She pointed out that under our law it has the highest status of any Sign Language in the world.
This is all well and good but where next? As with a good deal of legislation, there is the law but there are no resources to make sure it really works. We have a school curriculum but there needs to be more. Rachel raised the question of how to ensure there is progress. Should there be a Sign Language Commission like the Maori Language Commission? Do we need a national Sign Language strategy like the Maori Language Strategy? How do we promote the discussion to decide what needs to happen?
Watching a Signer is pure communication theatre, and very beautiful. Although I miss most of it, and can’t really learn it, I still enjoy watching while I listen to the interpreters. (We need more of them too.)
Perhaps with the assistance of UNESCO here and other supportive organisations, government and non-government we can make some progress this year. Languages matter!
