NationStates Jolt Archive

Education and Creativity
United Nations International Language Center
Cultural Heritage

The cultural heritage of a U.N member state and the people that reside within the borders of that U.N member are extremely important aspects within a nation's life. The idea of cultural heritage and cultural identity formulates a nation itself because it makes itself distinct from another nation in the world. Therefore, the preservation and recording of U.N member states languages, recognized or non-recognized, is extremely beneficial as it identifies, records and preserves a language for all eternity that will have scientific benefits for historians, anthropologists, and other academics where they can go and study and catalogue these languages for their scientific research. Preserving and recording languages in an International Language Center would be beneficial on a social level as touched on before because it will benefit on a culture identity level, but will also teach and train U.N member citizens, for example indigenous communities, to regain parts of their languages that may have been lost or transformed for different reasons within U.N member states.

1) This resolution is not for the purpose of teaching people different languages as that is a state government responsibility, but to record existing languages within U.N member-states and record them at the U.N International Language Center, where in extreme cases, groups of people, indigenous peoples for example can have copies of their language so that they can keep it for themselves and teach it too their young people for the future. In those cases, the language itself will be different then the recorded or catalogued language that is held at the International Language Center as for every different person any language has to be changed or transformed to suit their needs.

2) The International Language Center's main objective is to collect data, evidence, and records of languages used in U.N member states for academic and social objectives.

3) Non-U.N member states have the right to ask the International Language Center to collect and record languages that lie within those non-U.N member states that are not already prevalent in U.N member-states

4) If U.N member-states have their own system to record languages which reside on their territory, the International Language Center will incorporate that nation-state recording model to their system on a case by case basis.

5) The International Language Center is a non-profit organization that is run on donations from U.N member states, NGO organizations, and individuals.

Does anyone have any suggestions for this resolution???

(OOC: Be patient: the forums tend to be a little slower on weekends)

IC: I have a couple of problems with the preamble. The first is the issue of 'language preservation'. Languages evolve organically, and when it comes to some becoming extinct through force of habit, we don't see any value in artificially attempting to stick them a pole.

Use of alcohol and drugs isn't a social vice. Abuse of them is.

That said, I like the idea of the preamble. As I'm about to go indulge in some social vices, I don't have time to offer any major points, but maybe this (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=456288) proposal might provide some help.

-- George Madison
Legislative Director
Quintessence of Dust Department of UN Affairs

I find it very challinging to collect every language used by the thousands of country's in the u.n. when they devolp every day...my country has three languages... english, german, and the most commenly used langauge Kalia whoich has fourty seven letters. Some countrys dont even tell anyone what there language is...it needs to be thought trough some more..but i like the concept

The Grammar Nazi faints. *thud*

...


PLEASE construct your responses in a word processor of some kind, and then paste it into Jolt. Another grand idea is using Firefox 2.0 or some other such browser with inline spell check, at the very least. Please. Please.

There have been a couple of efforts to write proposals about preservation of languages. Interesting efforts with a lot of good discussion, but no concrete results. If we're going to consider this again, we'd like to state our government's position right up front.

We would wholeheartedly support a sound effort to preserve a record of languages, particularly endangered languages. This could be of great benefit to historians, students of linguistics, and cultural anthropologists, among others.

We would strongly oppose any effort to promote the use of languages. Languages are social organisms. They grow and change, and they die out when the users no longer find them useful. That's the natural process. Trying to interfere with that process makes no sense and is doomed to failure anyway.

Travilia E. Thwerdock
Ambassador to the United Nations

I have updated the resolution. I believe it is significantly different than the first one, smaller too, looking forward to U.N delegate discussion and suggestions.

anyone??

We must repeat the message of the honoured representative of the Wolf Guardians. The proposal as it currently stands contains so many grammar, spelling and punctuation nits to be picked that we are tempted to send the proposer a curry comb to speed the process up. Clause 1 in particular, in its attempts to qualify itself, actually succeeds in being more confusing than a bare statement would be.

We have a further problem with the preamble. It spends considerable effort dealing with the importance of cultural heritage and cultural identity, something we would not seek to refute. However the proposal itself deals exclusively with language, which is only a part of any given culture. It may be that the preamble manages to justify a conection -- we must confess that our eyes glazed over before we managed to finish that paragraph -- but we feel that the preamble would be better advised to be more focused.

I have my own word processor that I have taken a look into and have updated the grammar of five (minor) words that were spelt in correctly, either one or two letters missing or letters interchanged within the word itself. As well, there is no sentence fragmentation or run on sentences that the word processor picks up so besides those five words, what kind of suggestions can U.N members come up with to maybe get rid of some of the clutter. Because there is no more gramatical problems.

We are touched by your faith in technology, albeit a faith misplaced, but we have no intention of mounting a detailed dissection of your words at 3:30am

anyone??Please learn some patience.

Indeed. Rome was not built in a day, neither are UN resolutions :)

Indeed. Rome was not built in a day, neither are UN resolutions :)

Or at least the good ones aren't.

Bob Flibble
UN Representative

This is a very good idea.

Suggestions:

1. Fix the grammar, even if you have to find your odd friend in the basement with the English degree to help you.

2. Expect that this project might grow organically and holistically. That is, it might turn into a multi-purpose project and become a linguistic center.

3. Be patient. The resolution process is a pain in the tuchus.

4. Construct a concise argument as to why this is a good idea. Not wordy or long-winded.

Hopefully some parties will be interested in helping you through this process. I wish you well.

Thomas B. Lynniston, KCB
Ambassador to the UN
Commonwealth of Schwarzchild

Clause four could open the door for massive bureacratic waste. I can imagine unscrupulous national governments creating byzantine organization systems in a deliberate effort to stymie the Language Center- it's much more advantageous if the Center uses one uniform identification system for their main data, and make references to national systems as well.