UNESCO fund for languages

In News: The United Nations is looking to set up a multi-donor fund to revitalise, preserve and promote ancient and tribal languages across the globe, including ancient Indian languages such as Prakrit, Pali and Sharda among others.

• There are nearly 1,700 languages in India, out of which there is no data for 949 languages.

About the fund:

• The fund will be available to communities and non-governmental organisations.
• The members include Canada, Iceland, Norway, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Australia, India, Thailand, Gambia, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
• The fund set up by the UN can be utilised for the digital archiving of the lost languages.
• The International Decade of Indigenous Languages programme by UNESCO has launched a task force that aims to translate these languages to more accessible modern ones to preserve and promote them.
• UNESCO established the task force for making a Decade of Action for Indigenous Languages on March 22, 2021.

Source: Newsonair