Ondjiva - Academic Custódio Mwenefulenge, on Wednesday in Ondjiva, southern Cunene Province, defended the involvement of families in the transmission and teaching of national languages to the new generation, with a view to their valorisation and preservation.
Speaking to ANGOP on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, to be marked today, he said that families have a fundamental role to play in teaching local languages, in order to preserve part of the national identity.
According to him, many families do little to publicise and value languages in childhood, leading to many children losing their grasp of their cultural heritage due to a lack of encouragement at home.
For this reason, he emphasised the need for parents to dedicate themselves more to passing on knowledge and education from the cradle, where national languages are rich in proverbs that convey a lot of popular knowledge.
To him, mother tongues remain alive if everyone is not afraid to speak them and if we show interest in learning from our parents or people who speak them.
"A people without a language has no direction," a fact that requires joint efforts to preserve a people's intangible heritage", he emphasised.
As regards Cunene province, he recalled that the national language is highly valued due to the composition and huge population of which most of the people live in rural zones.
Compared to the previous year in which there was a certain fear of speaking national languages in public places, in the current days it seems young people speaking even through social networks awakens its interest and importance.
Rich in ethnolinguistic diversity, Cunene's main local languages are Oshikwanhama, Nhaneka Humbe, Herero, Ovambadja, Ovavale, Kafima Himba, Mundimbas, Hanha and minority groups such as the Vatuas and Koinsans.
International Mother Language Day
International Mother Language Day is celebrated annually on 21 February and aims to promote, preserve and protect all languages spoken by peoples around the world.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), it is estimated that there are more than 7,000 languages around the globe. However, half of these are in danger of disappearing.
Origin of the date
International Modern Language Day was proclaimed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1999 and is celebrated in all its member countries with the aim of promoting linguistic and cultural diversity among different nations.
On 21 February 1952, a group of students organised a campaign to include Bengali as one of the official languages of Pakistan. However, they were all killed by police forces.
This movement in favour of the inclusion of Bengali began when Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Pakistani general, declared that Urdu would become the official language in both West and East Pakistan (where Bengali was the main language).
The choice of 21 February to commemorate International Mother Language Day serves to remind the world's population of the tragedy that took place in February 1952 in the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh. FI/LHE/ART/MRA/DOJ
