Indigenous Languages

General Assembly: Social, Humanitarian & Cultural Committee

Topic: Indigenous Languages

An indigenous language is defined as a “language native to a region and spoken by indigenous people.” In an interconnected world where majority-speaking languages often transcend borders, the number of indigenous languages far exceeds more global ones. According to the UN Department of Public Information, “Although indigenous peoples make up less than 6% of the global population, they speak more than 4,000 of the world’s languages.” In context, there are approximately 6,700 languages spoken today across the globe. The vast cultural landscape of indigenous languages is crucial to establishing stability for indigenous populations, who utilize these languages not only as methods of communication, but as an expression of their peoples’ religious beliefs, political structures, and how they interact with the world around them.

Article 13 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states “Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures…” However, indigenous languages are disappearing at an alarming rate. According to the United Nations, more than half of known indigenous languages will be extinct by 2100. As indigenous languages fade, so do their speakers, who no longer have the cultural fabric that binds their community. Centuries of generational knowledge about the land they reside on, their customs, and more, cease to exist, making their way of life impossible to carry forth.

There is no single cause for the disappearance of so many of the worlds languages. There must therefore be a multitude of policies to preserve them. This may include providing resources for indigenous communities to establish there on educational systems and institutions. Making a language more accessible to others may help preserve it as others across the local region or even the world may be made aware of the language. The body must consider how to best improve upon existing policies and new ones to resolve the issue before it is forgotten.

Focus Questions:

1. In what contexts should indigenous languages be used outside of an indigenous
   community, if at all?
2. What have been successful methods of protecting indigenous languages in the past and
   how might they be replicated today?
3. What incentives, if any, do the private sector and member states have to preserve indigenous languages?

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