双语 | 2022国际母语日：使方言成为我们共同的遗产

2022年2月21日是第23个国际母语日，今年的主题是“利用技术促进多语言学习：挑战与机遇”。联合国教科文组织依照惯例发布了“联合国教科文组织总干事奥德蕾·阿祖莱国际母语日致辞”文件。

▲联合国教科文组织总干事奥德蕾·阿祖莱（资料图 图源：视觉中国）

以下是致辞中英双语全文↓

Message from Ms Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of International Mother Language Day (IMLD)

21 February 2022

联合国教科文组织总干事奥德蕾·阿祖莱

国际母语日致辞

2022年2月21日

When he expresses his desire to reacquaint himself with his language, Hamet, the boy created by the writer Diadié Dembélé, is expressing a universaland fundamental need.

“我想找回我的语言”：狄亚迪耶·登贝莱笔下的小男孩哈梅特的这一愿望，表达了一种普遍的基本需求。

Indeed, every language has a certain rhythm, a certain way ofapproaching things, of thinking about them. Learning or forgetting a languageis thus not merely about acquiring or losing a means of communication. It is about seeing an entire world either appear or fade away.

每一种语言都有其特定的节奏，都有其处理和思考事物的特定方式。因此，学习或遗忘一种语言，并非仅仅是掌握或丧失一种交流方式，而是直面一整个世界的出现或逝去。

From the very first day of school, many school children have the ambivalent experience of discovering one language - and the world of ideas which comes with it - and forgetting another one: the language they have known since infancy. Worldwide, four out of ten students do not have access to education in the language they speak or understand best; as a result, the foundation for their learning is more fragile. 

许多小学生上学伊始，便要经历这种难以言状的体验，即在发现一种语言及其所承载的思想世界的同时，遗忘他们从小便熟知的语言。全世界每10名学生中就有4人无法获得以自己最能表达或理解的语言所提供的教育，因此，他们的学习建立在一种较为脆弱的基础之上。

This distancing from the mother tongue affects us all, for linguistic diversity is a common good. And the protection of linguistic diversity is a duty. 

与母语的疏离影响到我们所有人。因为语言多样性是一种共有财产，对其加以保护是一种责任。

Technology can provide new tools for protecting linguistic diversity. Such tools, for example, facilitating their spread and analysis, allow us torecord and preserve languages which sometimes exist only in oral form. Putsimply, they make local dialects a shared heritage.

在这方面，科技可以提供新的工具，例如让我们得以记录并保存有时仅以口头形式存在的语言，促进其传播和对其进行分析，简言之，使方言成为我们共同的遗产。

However, because the Internet poses a risk of linguistic uniformization, we must also be aware that technological progress will serve plurilingualism only as long as we make the effort to ensure that it does. The designing of digital tools in several languages, the supporting of media development, and the supporting of access to connectivity: all this needs to be done so that people can discover different languages without giving up their respective mother tongues.

然而，面对互联网带来的语言单一化的危险，我们也必须意识到，只有我们保持警惕并为之作出努力，技术进步才能为多语主义服务。设计多种语言的数字工具以及支持媒体发展和连通性，这些工作都有待我们去完成，从而使每个人都能在不放弃母语的前提下去发现其他语言。

The International Decade of Indigenous Languages, which began this year, should, by channelling the efforts of researchers, broadcasters and speakers, give new momentum to the protection of these invaluable repositories of know-how and worldviews. As the lead agency for Decade-related work, UNESCO is fully committed to this cause.

今年启动的“国际土著语言十年”，通过汇聚研究员、传播和使用者的多方努力，应当能够为保护这些凝聚知识与世界观的宝库注入新的活力。教科文组织作为“国际土著语言十年”的牵头机构将全力以赴。

On this international day, I thus call on everyone able to do so to defend linguistic and cultural diversity, which makes up the universal grammar of our shared humanity.

值此国际母语日之际，我谨呼吁所有人尽其所能，捍卫语言和文化的多样性，因为这种多样性构成我们共有人性的普遍基础。

（图源：联合国官网）

来源：联合国教科文组织网站

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