The corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic has had many devastating impacts, from death or long-term health issues for too many, to economic hardship, as well as some supposedly “silver lining” effects. Among the latter, one was an observed trend in a …
Category Archives: policy/planning
What happened to the Year of Moderation?
The International Year of Moderation (IYM2019) seems to have come and gone without much activity or any fanfare. The reason, as I explored in a previous post on this subject, likely has to do with the fact that those …
International Decade of Indigenous Languages!
In these waning weeks of the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL2019), on a day that happens to also be observed as Arabic Language Day, the UN General Assembly ratified the resolution of its Third Committee (7 Nov. 2019), …
“MEI,” “MIEL,” or “MINEL” languages?
As the proposal for an International Decade of Indigenous Languages moves toward consideration by the UN General Assembly,1 I’d like to return to an old discussion about ways of referring to a broader set of languages – including but …
LUL’d awake
Researching some details for a forthcoming post, I ran across a number of acronyms, several of which are used mainly in Europe, describing languages disadvantaged in terms of numbers of speakers (often referred to as minority languages), profile in …
International Year of Millets, 2023
Early last year I noted India’s proposal to make 2018 the International Year of Millets (IYOM) and its subsequent rolling out of its own National Year of Millets in the same year. Apparently that IYOM proposal, submitted to FAO too …