In one month’s time, a lot of the world will celebrate multilingualism and language diversity on 21 February for UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day. This year is special because it begins UNESCO’s International Decade of Indigenous (Minority, Minoritized, Endangered) Languages 2022-2032, which marks the 30th anniversary of what can be considered the beginning of the field of Language Documentation in 1992.
Last year, on 22 February 2021, the Student’s Association of British Bangladeshis (SABB, @sabbnetwork) invited us to give a presentation on language diversity, particulary in Bangladesh (Spoiler alert: Bangladesh is not a monolingual country.), and on the Sylheti language. Here are the presentation slides:
Listen to a performance of Hasnat Anwar’s poem [boroi sur] ‘Jujube Thief’ on Youtube.
Sylheti Project - SOAS in Camden 