DUSHANBE, February 10, 2009, Asia-Plus — Why do languages disappear? Which parts of the world are most affected? What can be done to save them? The new edition of the UNESCO Atlas of the World”s Languages in Danger of Disappearing aims to answer these questions. It will be presented to the press at UNESCO Headquarters on February 19, on the eve of International Mother Language Day (February 21), press release issued by UNESCO on February 9 said.
The Atlas is published for the first time as an interactive, digital tool with updated information on over 2500 languages. The fruit of a collaborative effort by a team of linguists under the direction of Australian, Professor Christopher Moseley, the Atlas is available free of charge worldwide. It will be continually updated and will allow users to produce their own maps, based on a country or region, or to conduct searches by language category – extinct, critically endangered, severely endangered, and definitively endangered. Production of the Atlas has been made possible thanks to a donation from Norway.
The day after the launch, on February 20, UNESCO Headquarters will host celebrations for International Mother Language Day.
The Atlas will then be presented to the public, followed by a review of activities carried out during the International Year of Languages (2008). A paper version of the Atlas will be published in the coming months in English, French and Spanish.
In the meantime, speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Professor Bahriddin Kamoliddinov said on February 10 that languages in danger of disappearing exist in Tajikistan as well. These are the Pamir languages and the Yaghnobi language.
These languages are mostly used for daily family communication, while Tajik is used by the Pamiri and Yaghnobi speakers for business and formal transactions.
The Pamir languages are a subgroup of the Eastern Iranian languages, spoken by people in the Pamir Mountains, primarily along the Panj River and its tributaries. This includes Gorno Badakhshan in Tajikistan and the Badakhshan province in Afghanistan. Smaller communities can be found in the adjacent areas of Pakistan where many have settled in recent decades. Sarikoli, one of the languages of the Pamir group, is spoken beyond the Sarikol ridge on the Afghan-Chinese border, and thus qualifies as the eastern-most of the extant Iranian languages. Members of the Pamir language group include Shugnani, Sarikoli, Yazgulyam, Munji, Sanglechi-Ishkashimi, Wakhi and Yidga.
The Yaghnobi language is also a subgroup of the eastern Iranian languages. Yaghnobi is spoken in the upper valley of the Yaghnob River in the Zarafshon area of Tajikistan by the Yaghnobi people. It is considered to be a direct descendant of Sogdian and has often been called Neo-Sogdian in academic literature.
