Language is Everything: Talking Language Activism with Wikitongues

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"This is one of the most important things that we can do as humans - to constantly strive to learn about things that we don't understand."

An organization dedicated to raising awareness of language diversity.

We all know that language is important, but after listening to this episode you'll be amazed at the enormous variety of perspectives on this topic. Non-profit organization Wikitongues looks at languages from all points of view - as a metaphor for life.

What do we lose when a language dies?

There are communities that lose their ability to lose their own language - when a language is lost, the individuals in that community lose a part of who they are. Language death is both a loss of history and a loss of identity.

If you oppose racism, mysogyny, genocide and oppresion, you must support language diversity!

And if you thought language discrimination was a thing of the past, think again: Languages like Occitan and Cornish are experiencing it right now.

Links from this episode

• Youtube Channel of Wikitongues


• Language or Linguistic Rights is the summary of human rights that cover our rights to speak and choose our languages.


• Poly, the app by Wikitongues


• The World in Words podcast: Who in Japan speaks Ainu?


• The World in Words podcast: Welsh is considered a model for language revitalization, but its fate is still uncertain


• Yvonne Treis's Book about Moselfränkisch: "Ein Kaffee zum Mitholen, bitte!"

Some cool languages documented on Wikitongues:

• Nafasana, a language of Vanuatu (where?)


• Ainu, a language of Japan

Note for pedants: In the interview, the Universal Declaration for Human Rights was mentioned, but the speaker may have meant the Universal Declaration for Linguistic Rights. I researched this but could not find the exact quote in either one. If you know more details, go ahead and leave a comment or itunes review to help us out.

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