International Year of Languages
2008 has been declared International Year of Languages by the United Nations. Part of their aim is redress the balance between English and the five other official languages used in the UN (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish), and they hope that the pursuit of multilingualism will act “as a means of promoting, protecting and preserving diversity of languages and cultures globally”.
Happy New Year, by the way.
12 Responses to “International Year of Languages”
Nik on 01 Jan 2008 at 9:22 pm #
Akemashite omedetou!
James on 01 Jan 2008 at 10:00 pm #
¡Feliz año!
David on 01 Jan 2008 at 11:41 pm #
¡Próspero año nuevo!
suchosch on 01 Jan 2008 at 11:54 pm #
thanks for info. i knew only about International Year of Potato :-)
and… here is my PF in Czech: http://suchosch.net/img/pf2008.jpg (can you understand it?)
BG on 02 Jan 2008 at 3:54 am #
Ein gutes neues Jahr!
B.Jun on 02 Jan 2008 at 7:41 am #
Saehae bokmani badeuseyo!
Simon on 02 Jan 2008 at 10:17 am #
Suchosch - does it mean something like “Prosperously/successfully step into the New Year, best wishes Suchosch”?
What’s the signifiance of PF 8888?
suchosch on 02 Jan 2008 at 12:24 pm #
yes, meaning is correct. and 8888… it’s 2008, of course - watch the blue color ;)
Seumas on 02 Jan 2008 at 5:51 pm #
Bliadhna Mhath Ur!
David Thin on 03 Jan 2008 at 2:19 pm #
Boldog Új Évet Kívánok! (B.U.É.K.!) :)
JRice on 26 Jan 2008 at 8:43 pm #
Coincidentally, I made impossible new-years resolutions about languages… which brought me to your blog. : )
Since I had already started Hindi (though not with any seriousness–at least I learned Devanagari), I have been focusing on that one for now. At the moment, I’m up to about a 250-word vocabulary, and I’m just now learning conjugation of commands. (I’m using “Teach Yourself Hindi”, as well as some on-line resources.)
I’m also trying to pick up smatterings of French when I’m bored, and I’ve been trying to read the news in German, to polish up on what I learned in college…
I’m itching to learn Arabic next, since I got such a rush out of being able to read Devanagari… though I’m also tempted by Chinese.
All of this had made me a little depressed, since for the longest time I thought learning lanugages was slow, painful, and not really worthwhile without native speakers to interact with. …Now that I’m doing it, I find that the process itself is extremely rewarding!
DA on 08 Mar 2008 at 10:46 pm #
Hyvaa uutta vuotta (Finnish for Happy New Year)