Topic: Preservation of Endangered Languages
Country: Iraq
Delegate Name: William-Howard Howard-Jackson
School: Fishers High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Iraq position papers GLIMUN 2013 committees
Endangered and extinct languages have been thought to be causes of the lost culture in societies. In the 6,500 spoken languages of the world, nearly half are endangered with an average rate of one language dying every two weeks. The discussed issue regarding endangered languages refers to the deciding severity of the correlation between the endangerment of languages and the loss of culture in societies. The question arises of if preservation measures and resources should be used on endangered languages to help improve the decline of various nations’ cultures.
The Republic of Iraq is a country that understands how to deal with endangered languages and is still dealing with them to this day. The Aramaic language was one that was on the verge of extinction until a preservation act on the language was introduced and started the language to be locally taught in schools. The Aramaic language now has more than 50,000 speakers and is still growing. If such measures were not taken, years of history would have been lost and communities of people that spoke such languages would be depleted. A whole society and a whole culture cannot just be forgotten. Generations of families have harbored that history and to allow their language to be extinct would be to allow their existence to be extinct as well. Preserving history is what keeps a family, community, and nation running. Due to our success of preserving this ancient language, we Iraqis believe it is by all means necessary to preserve endangered languages and keep the history of the language itself and those that speak it intact.
As for other languages and other regions throughout the world dealing with endangerment and extinction of languages, the members of The Republic of Iraq would like to lend our aide in preservation. We suggest to the UN to adopt our technique of calling upon the youth of the country and adjusting the school curriculum to enforce the teachings of these endangered languages. In doing so, more and more of the growing population will have knowledge of these languages and improve the numbers in which these languages are spoken in order to keep them from being endangered, or at very best extinct. It is in the very name of the Social, CULTURAL, and Humanitarian committee to preserve and restore culture for the betterment of the futures for our societies.
