KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 20

The Language Commission has started preservation of a total of 37 languages with less than 1,000 native speakers and thereby on the brink of extinction.

At a seminar jointly organised by the Nepal Academy and UNESCO here today on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, it was shared that 23 of the 37 languages were on the verge of extinction. Presenting a working paper, the commission's Chairperson Dr Lavdev Awasthi said the commission began preservation of those languages in association of the University Grant Commission.

On the occasion, Sulochana Manandhar presented a paper on popular Nepali fairy tales and interrelated relations between humans and the environment, while Balkrishna Bal shed light on the technical process of translation of languages.

Similarly, Som Bahadur Dhital presented his paper on the Dhimal language and relation with cultures. All the paper presenters univocally called for preservation of mother languages of various ethnic communities.

Inaugurating the event, the Academy's Chancellor Ganga Prasad Uprety said, 'The programme is organised to support preservation as well as conservation of all mother languages in a multi-lingual society like ours.'

Similarly, Secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Maheshwor Neupane viewed that the state should ensure the mechanism, infrastructure, and human resources to provide education to students in their respective mother languages as mandated by the constitution.

He underscored the need to build coordination among the three tiers of government in a bid to preserve and conserve mother languages.

Likewise, member-secretary at the Academy Jagat Prasad Upadhyay underlined the need of coordination among various universities and stakeholder agencies to provide education in various mother languages. He shared that a study showed that every 15 days, two languages were becoming extinct across the world.

UNSECO representatives Nirjana Sharma, representatives from the Bangladeshi Embassy in Nepal Ishrat Jahan, scholar Yogendra Prasad Yadav, among others, reaffirmed their commitment to continue with the collaboration among stakeholders for preservation of mother languages.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, in 2000, had declared that February 21 would be observed as International Mother Language Day.

A version of this article appears in the print on February 21, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.