Special opportunities for conserving cultural and biological diversity: The co-occurrence of Indigenous languages and UNESCO Natural World Heritage Sites

Recent research indicates that speakers of Indigenous languages often live in or near United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Natural World Heritage Sites (WHSs). Because language is a key index of cultural diversity, examining global patterns of co-occurrence between languages and these sites provides a means of identifying opportunities to conserve both culture and nature, especially where languages, WHSs, or both are recognized as endangered. This paper summarizes instances when Indigenous languages share at least part of their geographic extent with Natural WHSs. We consider how this co-occurrence introduces the potential to co­ordinate conservation of nature and sociocultural systems at these localities, particularly with respect to the recently issued UNESCO policy on engaging Indigenous people and the forthcoming International Year of Indigenous Languages. The paper concludes by discussing how the presence of Indigenous people at UNESCO Natural WHSs introduces important opportunities for co-management that enable resident Indigenous people to help conserve their language and culture along with the natural settings where they occur. We discuss briefly the example of Australia as a nation exploring opportunities for employing and strengthening such coordinated conservation efforts

Indigenous languages shaping multi-lingual interfaces

This paper reports on an investigation into the indigenous language usage of two bilingual/multilingual digital libraries. Results show that the indigenous language was significantly used by clients and indicate why clients chose to use the indigenous language. Feedback from clients has suggested how the interface should be improved to assist both indigenous and non-indigenous language usage. These results serve as an example of how indigenous languages are shaping multilingual interfaces

Maria Yosephin Widarti Lestari

In Indonesia, based on the 2003 Curriculum for Junior school, there are three languages, e.g. English, Bahasa Indonesia and indigenous languages in the group of language. It means that all three languages are taught though in fact the indigenous language is not the subject examined nationally. The government policy to place indigenous languages in education system is meant to be one of the ways to avoid it from extinction. Unfortunately, many problems arose in the teaching and learning process because of the status of the language. The research was carried out in 2 junior schools in Bandung, West Jawa, Indonesia. The schools chosen are based on the location and status in which one is a private school in town (77 students) and the other school is public/state one located in outside the city (74 students). Findings suggested that the students from public school have higher attitudes toward the use of Sundanese language and the Sundanese language learning than students from private school. It is influenced by social and educational factors internally and externally

ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING THROUGH THE CULTURE OF LEARNER’S INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE

The concern on learners’ competence to communicate in English culturally has been attaining multitude attention within attention to make learner be able to communicate effectively in English as part of the international society while learners have limited conceptualization upon cultural issues. On the other hand, the indigenous language(s) is also threatened by the improvement of interests and practices of learning English. Learners, along with the language policy in education, tend to move aside or to give less attention onto the indigenous languages and give more to English. Departed from the purpose of improving learners’ cultural understanding in English and at the same time to encourage the existence of indigenous language, this paper presents language cultural background of English compared with Javanese and Sasak Languages by employing contrastive analysis and ethnography study

PRESERVING AND PROTECTING JAVANESE LANGUAGES BY APPLYING CODE SWITCHING AND CODE MIXING IN TEACHING ENGLISH IN CLASSROOM ( SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE ASSIGNMENT OF PRAGMATICS)

Javanese languages are a part of Indigenous languages. They are one of culture’s heritages which Javanese people should preserve and protect them in this globalization era. Javanese languages are considered as the cornerstone of culture and the ultimate expression which Javanese people should know that by using them, culture can be shared and transmitted to further generations to express their identities. However, in the real fact, many indigenous languages in this world are almost extinct, and even, Javanese languages almost disappear at this time in some areas and places. It is crystal clear that there is no special caution from other Javanese people, especially government, in trying to preserve them. Not only government, but also the parents and the elders should take part in this case. Javanese languages should be passed on from generation to the other. Even, it is not strange when the parental generation speaks the Javanese language, they do not often pass it on to their children. Therefore, in an increasing number of cases, Javanese languages are used only by elders. Actually, the loss of some Javanese languages can be caused by some factors, such as irresistible social, political, and economic pressures. In this matter, the relationship and the cooperation between a language planning, language policy, language rights and language education are needed to prevent this phenomena. They are used as vehicles for promoting and perpetuating the vitality, versatility, and stability of Javanese languages. Creating and arranging a better language planning and a better language policy are important to do in Indonesia right now to protect Indonesian language and Indigenous languages, especially Javanese languages. It is, of course, also supported by developing and paying attention to the language rights. Moreover, focusing on language in education for children and young people is a best way to start preserving Javanese languages. Including Javanese children and youth in this discussion on language and education is befitting and appropriate. It needs to know that education in classroom and school areas have also the potential of saving and reviving Javanese languages which are at the brink of extinction. The non-recognition and the prohibition of the use of Javanese languages in the education and work place has impacted the lives of many Javanese people, it has affected them from childhood to adulthood, in the creation of their identity and development of their communities. Education world, in classroom and school areas, which was used as an instrument of assimilation of some languages in Indonesia, especially in Central Java, has impacted in the Javanese languages. Therefore, applying code switching and code mixing in teaching English in classroom should be offered to Javanese people, but also to all students who stay in Java island, as a means of combating prejudices and discrimination and promoting inclusive and respectful societies, is better step to do. However, in order to make it real, the cooperation and the seriousness of government, Javanese people, parents, elders, teachers, and even lecturers must be created in Indonesia, especially in Central Java. It is better for government to make a decision explicitly in keeping and preserving Javanese languages from the extinction through teaching activities in classroom and school areas as the basic formal activity. Keywords : Code mixing, code switching, indigenous languages, Javanes

Deconstructing the instrumental/identity divide in language policy debates

Debates about language and literacy policies are increasingly constructed at national levels in relation to their potential contribution to the ‘knowledge economy’, and to the ability of nation-states to compete economically in an increasingly globalised world. Invariably, this instrumental approach to language privileges the role of English as the current world language. Thus, in contexts where English is not spoken as a first language, English is increasingly viewed as the most important and/or useful additional language. In English-dominant contexts, monolingualism in English is seen as being a sufficient, even an ideal language model, while literacy in English comes to stand for literacy (and related social mobility) per se. Where other languages are countenanced at all in these latter contexts, the instrumentalist approach continues to dominate, with so-called international and/or trading languages being constructed as the languages other than English most worth learning, or perhaps even as the only other languages worth learning. The growing dominance of economistic, instrumental approaches to language policy, and the valorisation of English that is associated with them, clearly militate against ongoing individual and societal multilingualism. The languages most at risk here are so-called minority languages, particularly indigenous languages. In the new globalised world dominated by English, and where the perceived ‘usefulness’ of language is elided with language value, such languages are increasingly constructed as having neither. This paper deconstructs and critiques this positioning of indigenous and other minority languages, along with the wider instrumentality of much language and literacy policy of which it forms a part. In light of this, it also explores how such languages can be actively, justifiably and effectively maintained and promoted, particularly in English-dominant contexts

PRESERVING AND MAINTAINING NATIVE TONGUE THROUGH CULTURAL EXPOSURE

Looking at children in using foreign languages is amazed older people as they can speak those languages fluently. Nowdays, the number of Indonesian children who can produce foreign languages in terms of spoken and written forms of communication is without any doubt surprising. It becomes a trend for parents who are willing to pay at higher costs to send their children to Bilingual and International schools. From this perspective we agree upon the condition that the government has suceeded in pursuing the use of International language in our country. On the other hand, we are losing our own native tongue or vernaculars as schools only allocate those languages as muatan lokal. The government should consider this condition because if they only think of one side, it is possibly endangered the existence of the vernaculars. Fact shows that the number of indigenous languages in Indonesia is dicreasing as there are no more native speakers of the language. Sooner or later indigenous languages will be extinct and we will loose the culture. Language is a part of culture if we lose the language it also means that some parts of culture are gone. History will prove that somehow those extinct vernaculars are existed before they are gone. Therefore, we need to do real action to preserve and maintain our native tongue from becoming extinct by giving more cultural exposure for children at younger age

Review of script displays of African languages by current software

All recorded African languages that have a writing system have orthographies which use the Roman or Arabic scripts, with a few exceptions. Whilst Unicode successfully handles the encoding of both these scripts, current software, in particular web browsers, take little account of users wishing to operate in a minority script. Their use for displaying African languages has been limited by the availability of facilities and the desire to communicate with the ‘world’ through major languages such as English and French. There is a need for more use of the indigenous languages to strengthen their language communities and the use of the local scripts in enhancing the learning, teaching and general use of their own languages by their speaking communities