Topic: 2024-Indigenous Languages
Country: Mexico
Delegate Name: Gwyneth Wyckoff
Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee
Indigenous Languages
Mexico
Portage Central High School
Being from The Republic of the United Mexican States we want to define indigenous languages and its ultimate view from across the UN. A “language native to a region and spoken by indigenous people” refers to the world definition on indigenous language. In Article 13 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, it states that Indigenous people have the right to use, transmit, develop, and revitalize the language to future generations. Nearly all countries in the UN supported the declaration so it was drafted into effect on September 13th of 2007.
The Republic of the United Mexican States has recognized 364 different varieties of indigenous languages. Mexico has given public support to the restoration of the indigenous languages across the nation. But the use of these languages in formal settings is at a rapid decline, now informal settings, such as family households are relied on to continue the language on. Inside these households there is a big contrast between the parents and the children who know the indigenous languages. Only 41.5% of Indigenous mothers know or speak their indigenous language, while only 36.8% of Indigenous children speak their indigenous language.
Mexico will push Indigenous languages in schools, and continue building organizations to rebuild the native languages like they started to do after the Mexican Revolution. An organization made in the 1990’s is the IBE, Intercultural Bilingual Education. Now over 22,000 Indigenous schools have implemented the IBE to their curriculum. Mexico will be able to say that our country is no longer in the top 5 at risk to lose our Indigenous languages.
