International Mother Language Day 2015

Today is International Mother Language Day! People worldwide are tweeting in indigenous and other languages in an effort to celebrate global linguistic diversity. Many of the tweets appearing with the #MotherTongue and #IMLD2015 hashtags also showcase archival and digitization efforts underway to help promote and sustain minority languages.

To read more about the history of this online campaign and the role that “digital language activists” can play across the globe, read this posting on the Global Voices blog. A more in-depth history of the origins of International Mother Language Day appeared today on the Oxford University Press blog. For an informative posting on that explores how digital tools can aid marginalized voices, note this interview at The Source (blog for the Center for International Media Assistance).

Check out the #MotherTongue and #IMLD2015 hashtags on twitter, and (if you’re so inclined) add some tweets of your own! Here are some additional online resources worth following today:

• Endangered Languages: website; on twitter: @_ELProject
• Indigenous Tweets: website and blog; on twitter: @IndigenousTweet
• Living Tongues: website; on twitter: @livingtongues
• Recovering Voices: blog; on twitter: @RecoverVoices
• Rising Voices: website; on twitter: @risingvoices
• WikiTongues: YouTube channel; on twitter: @wikitongues

P.S. Some other related posts: a beguiling entry published today on the Endangered Languages and Cultures blog features images of monuments to languages/scripts. Jonathan Hsy (Co-Director of the GW DH Institute) offered some reflections on the ethics of language preservation on the group medieval studies blog In the Middle (back in July 2013).