Tue, 12 Jan 2010
DPA
Phnom Penh - The world's rich array of languages is shrinking, UNESCO said, with one language becoming extinct every two weeks. By the end of the century, the UN's cultural body said it expected today's 6,700 languages to be halved. With them will go untold cultural diversity. It is a bleak tale and seemingly unstoppable although not every endangered language is on UNESCO's list. One called Na'vi even has its own listing on Wikipedia, where its 23-page entry covers pronunciation and grammar to frustrate the most talented linguist.
But Na'vi, whose name will be familiar to many moviegoers, is a fiction: It was invented for James Cameron's blockbuster movie Avatar, and even the US language professor who created Na'vi cannot speak it fluently. Technically, that makes Na'vi extinct, although its inventor has high hopes it would catch on.
At the other end of the spectrum is S'aoch, an ethnic minority language spoken in southern Cambodia that experts said predates Na'vi by 6,000 years. S'aoch is at least a working language with 10 fluent speakers.
But there is no Wikipedia page for S'aoch, which is on the verge of extinction. Given that there are people who speak Klingon, a language invented for the Star Trek films, and that Avatar is now the second-highest-grossing movie in history, there is a good chance Na'vi would be spoken long after S'aoch is gone.
Jean-Michel Filippi, a linguistics professor based in Cambodia, is S'aoch's most passionate supporter, having studied the language for 10 years and transcribed more than 4,000 words, which incidentally is four times the vocabulary of the Na'vi language.
He is the first to admit S'aoch has no chance. The village of Samrong Loeu, where the last speakers live, has 110 inhabitants. Just 10 are fluent, but none uses the language. Filippi stressed the lack of speakers is not solely to blame.
"Survival depends on one thing: Does the minority want to protect and save its own culture?" he said.
In the case of S'aoch, the answer is that they do not. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the S'aoch-speaking people were unable to return to their original village, so they ended up in Samrong Loeu with no land and are consequently poor. They see around them Khmer-speaking people with land and relative wealth and, not surprisingly, aspire to be like them.
"When you are put in a position of economic inferiority, you tend to reject your own culture," Filippi said.
S'aoch is an ancient tongue and is related to minority tongues in India and Malaysia as well as to modern Khmer. It predates the famous temples of Angkor Wat in the country's west and is also one of 19 Cambodian languages UNESCO said are at risk of extinction.
Filippi explained why the number of speakers matters less to a language's survival than one might think. Another endangered language, Somray, which is spoken by a few hundred people in western Cambodia, stands a much better chance because the villagers need the language for prayers used in their animist religious services.
"If the prayers are pronounced badly, then they won't work, so they want their children to learn the language," he said.
Blaise Kilian, UNESCO's joint programme coordinator in Phnom Penh, said an array of factors conspire to kill languages, the most obvious being too few people fluent in the tongue.
"You also have the environment and the way people themselves, especially the new generation, react to the changing environment and how much they are interested in preserving and transmitting their own language," Kilian said.
The imminent demise of S'aoch raises the question of what can be done about Cambodia's other endangered languages. Kilian said the outlook is bleak for many.
In the case of S'aoch, the only option is to do what Filippi is doing: write down and record as much of the language as possible while its remaining speakers are alive.
Some of Cambodia's languages are more widely spoken, and steps such as broadcasting radio programmes in minority languages do help - something UNESCO and the government do in the north-eastern provinces of Ratanakkiri and Mondolkiri.
Bilingual education in schools is also important, which is what the international charity Care has done in Cambodia's north-east in conjunction with the Education Ministry. Ron Watt, Care's education adviser, said the 7-year-old programme covers almost 1,900 pupils in 25 schools and incorporates four languages.
Watt said children in first grade use their own language for 80 per cent of classes with the rest undertaken in Khmer, but the proportion of minority language used drops over the following two years and, by the time fourth grade begins, all instruction is in Khmer.
"People with a language-development bent would say this isn't a classic language maintenance model, let alone a language development model," Watt said, "but it is much, much better than nothing."
It is too early to say whether efforts such as Care's as well as adult literacy classes in minority languages run by other non-governmental organizations would succeed. But S'aoch is certainly finished, and when it slips away in the next decade, the chances are that only Filippi and a few others would even notice.
Many - perhaps most - of the other 18 endangered Cambodian languages are also doomed. With their extinction will go unique customs and cultures stretching back into Cambodia's pre-history.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Falling birth rate raises problem for Japan
From CNN
January 11, 2010
Posted: 1016 GMT
Young people celebrate Coming of Age Day in Tokyo.
Tokyo, Japan - Today is a joyous national holiday in Japan known as the Coming of Age Day. The day marks the time when girls and boys become women and men.
All over Tokyo, young women who are turning 20 this fiscal year are decked out in the fanciest, brightest, and most expensive kimonos you’ll ever see. Young men show up in the sharpest (and likely their first) black suit. The women are adorned with all the stylings of youth: huge hair, flowers, furs and silk. You have to forgive them if they’ve gone a bit over the top — you only become an adult once in Japan.
At the Shibuya ward office, 1450 people arrived at the important Coming of Age Day this January 11, 2010. Compare that number to years past, and you get a glimpse into one of Japan’s most pressing economic problems.
Five years ago, Shibuya ward had 1,917 people turn 20. Ten years ago, that number was 2,462. Twenty years ago, it was 4,380. That’s a steady decline in 20 years, down almost 70 percent. The number of young people is declining, not just in Shibuya, but all over Japan.
The birth rate in Japan is 1.37, among the lowest in the world. Japanese women, in survey after survey, report they’re holding back from having children because of the lack of daycare, inequity of domestic duties in marriage, career concerns and the high cost of living in Japan.
At the same time, the number of elderly is growing. By 2050, Japan’s government predicts 40 percent of its population will be over the age of 65. It’s a crippling population problem which analysts say will make this current recession and recovery look like a brief hiccup.
Japan celebrates its young today. But the joy diminishes every year.
January 11, 2010
Posted: 1016 GMT
Young people celebrate Coming of Age Day in Tokyo.Tokyo, Japan - Today is a joyous national holiday in Japan known as the Coming of Age Day. The day marks the time when girls and boys become women and men.
All over Tokyo, young women who are turning 20 this fiscal year are decked out in the fanciest, brightest, and most expensive kimonos you’ll ever see. Young men show up in the sharpest (and likely their first) black suit. The women are adorned with all the stylings of youth: huge hair, flowers, furs and silk. You have to forgive them if they’ve gone a bit over the top — you only become an adult once in Japan.
At the Shibuya ward office, 1450 people arrived at the important Coming of Age Day this January 11, 2010. Compare that number to years past, and you get a glimpse into one of Japan’s most pressing economic problems.
Five years ago, Shibuya ward had 1,917 people turn 20. Ten years ago, that number was 2,462. Twenty years ago, it was 4,380. That’s a steady decline in 20 years, down almost 70 percent. The number of young people is declining, not just in Shibuya, but all over Japan.
The birth rate in Japan is 1.37, among the lowest in the world. Japanese women, in survey after survey, report they’re holding back from having children because of the lack of daycare, inequity of domestic duties in marriage, career concerns and the high cost of living in Japan.
At the same time, the number of elderly is growing. By 2050, Japan’s government predicts 40 percent of its population will be over the age of 65. It’s a crippling population problem which analysts say will make this current recession and recovery look like a brief hiccup.
Japan celebrates its young today. But the joy diminishes every year.
Laos first stop as P Penh goes complaining
Monday January 11, 2010
Saritdet Marukatat
Bangkok Post
COMMENTARY
A small story sometimes has big implications. What is happening between Cambodia and Laos nicely fits this definition.
Cambodian Deputy Foreign Minister Long Visalo went to Vientiane last Tuesday. His mission to the northern neighbour was clear. The Cambodian government wanted to brief Laos about its dispute with Thailand.
In the Laotian capital, Long Visalo lectured some 200 Lao Foreign Ministry officials on the history of Preah Vihear, the ruling by the International Court of Justice in 1962 that the Hindu temple belonged to his country, as well as Cambodia's right to list it as a World Heritage Site under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in July 2008.
The Cambodian deputy minister also told his hosts about the border dispute between his country and Thailand, which started after the latter country made a U-turn on its previous stance which had been in support of Cambodia's attempt to list Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site.
The Cambodian campaign cannot be seen as anything but the start of its efforts to drum up backing from other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to help sort out the border conflict with Thailand for good.
And Laos will not be the only stop in this tactic. On the list, of course, are Burma and Vietnam (the latter is scheduled to take the Asean chair till December).
Phnom Penh's strategy is to turn the dispute over the overlapping land boundary of 4.6 square kilometres into a regional issue by trying to bring in the involvement of other Asean members.
Thailand thinks otherwise, with its intention to keep the matter as a quarrel between two neighbours which should be settled by the two neighbours only.
The more countries jumping in, the more difficult it will be to resolve the problem.
The talks in Vientiane did not cover the issue of ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra - at least as far as the information made public shows.
But then again, the Thaksin issue is not a main factor at all for Cambodia.
Ending Thaksin's role as an economic adviser to Phnom Penh is Bangkok's condition for diplomatic normalisation with Cambodia. No country can stand seeing its citizen, who has been sentenced to jail, given recognition by another government.
But for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, the root cause goes beyond last year when he added Thaksin to the long list of advisers to his government. It began right there on the border between Cambodia' Preah Vihear province and Kantaralak district in Si Sa Ket province.
The whole issue is about the temple and the land dispute in that area.
"You raise the issue of Thaksin, but you forget the issue of Preah Vihear," Hun Sen said in October, during one of his verbal onslaughts on Thailand.
It is not difficult for anybody to guess that there is no way in sight for the two countries to end the sour ties, given their vastly different positions which are beyond the reach of a compromise. But, as Asean members, they cannot leave relations festering this way, either. Other countries view what is happening between Thailand and Cambodia as an obstruction to Asean's attempts to bring unity into the club which, five years from now, is to become one single community. However, what can other Asean countries do but watch and hope that there will be a miracle to end the two neighbours' quarrel?
Another worry from the Thai-Cambodian spat is that it could spill over to poison ties between Thailand and other members in Asean who are very close to Cambodia. One of them is Laos. The history of their jungle warfare to drive out, first the colonialists and then the Western-supported governments, has made Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam brothers, who also have same positions on issues in Asean. As countries with Thailand as their immediate common neighbour, Cambodia and Laos have long been aware of the rising Thai influence in their country.
So far there are no problems in the relations between Thailand and Laos. But that does not mean everything will go smoothly. Problems still exist but they have been swept under the carpet by Vientiane over the past years because it needed help from Thailand to host the SEA Games last year.
Now the Games are over. Now the Cambodian deputy minister has visited Vientiane. And now the story of Thai-Laos relations in the post-SEA Games era begins.
Saritdet Marukatat is News Editor, Bangkok Post.
Saritdet Marukatat
Bangkok Post
COMMENTARY
A small story sometimes has big implications. What is happening between Cambodia and Laos nicely fits this definition.
Cambodian Deputy Foreign Minister Long Visalo went to Vientiane last Tuesday. His mission to the northern neighbour was clear. The Cambodian government wanted to brief Laos about its dispute with Thailand.
In the Laotian capital, Long Visalo lectured some 200 Lao Foreign Ministry officials on the history of Preah Vihear, the ruling by the International Court of Justice in 1962 that the Hindu temple belonged to his country, as well as Cambodia's right to list it as a World Heritage Site under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in July 2008.
The Cambodian deputy minister also told his hosts about the border dispute between his country and Thailand, which started after the latter country made a U-turn on its previous stance which had been in support of Cambodia's attempt to list Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site.
The Cambodian campaign cannot be seen as anything but the start of its efforts to drum up backing from other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to help sort out the border conflict with Thailand for good.
And Laos will not be the only stop in this tactic. On the list, of course, are Burma and Vietnam (the latter is scheduled to take the Asean chair till December).
Phnom Penh's strategy is to turn the dispute over the overlapping land boundary of 4.6 square kilometres into a regional issue by trying to bring in the involvement of other Asean members.
Thailand thinks otherwise, with its intention to keep the matter as a quarrel between two neighbours which should be settled by the two neighbours only.
The more countries jumping in, the more difficult it will be to resolve the problem.
The talks in Vientiane did not cover the issue of ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra - at least as far as the information made public shows.
But then again, the Thaksin issue is not a main factor at all for Cambodia.
Ending Thaksin's role as an economic adviser to Phnom Penh is Bangkok's condition for diplomatic normalisation with Cambodia. No country can stand seeing its citizen, who has been sentenced to jail, given recognition by another government.
But for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, the root cause goes beyond last year when he added Thaksin to the long list of advisers to his government. It began right there on the border between Cambodia' Preah Vihear province and Kantaralak district in Si Sa Ket province.
The whole issue is about the temple and the land dispute in that area.
"You raise the issue of Thaksin, but you forget the issue of Preah Vihear," Hun Sen said in October, during one of his verbal onslaughts on Thailand.
It is not difficult for anybody to guess that there is no way in sight for the two countries to end the sour ties, given their vastly different positions which are beyond the reach of a compromise. But, as Asean members, they cannot leave relations festering this way, either. Other countries view what is happening between Thailand and Cambodia as an obstruction to Asean's attempts to bring unity into the club which, five years from now, is to become one single community. However, what can other Asean countries do but watch and hope that there will be a miracle to end the two neighbours' quarrel?
Another worry from the Thai-Cambodian spat is that it could spill over to poison ties between Thailand and other members in Asean who are very close to Cambodia. One of them is Laos. The history of their jungle warfare to drive out, first the colonialists and then the Western-supported governments, has made Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam brothers, who also have same positions on issues in Asean. As countries with Thailand as their immediate common neighbour, Cambodia and Laos have long been aware of the rising Thai influence in their country.
So far there are no problems in the relations between Thailand and Laos. But that does not mean everything will go smoothly. Problems still exist but they have been swept under the carpet by Vientiane over the past years because it needed help from Thailand to host the SEA Games last year.
Now the Games are over. Now the Cambodian deputy minister has visited Vientiane. And now the story of Thai-Laos relations in the post-SEA Games era begins.
Saritdet Marukatat is News Editor, Bangkok Post.
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