Last Words: The Dying of Languages. Last Words Marathi. Gujarati. Hindi. English. Kutchi. In Bombay, where I grew up, I used these languages every day. Despite their best efforts, I did anything I could to avoid responding to my grandparents in Kutchi. Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi, and English are each spoken by at least 40 million Indians. India is a densely polyglot country. It's believed that the human faculty for language arose at some point between 20,000 and 100,000 years ago. Today, the world's speech is increasingly homogenized. Most languages, in contrast, have a very limited distribution. Some of these linguistic "hot spots" appear to be on the verge of a kind of cultural implosion. In North America, the linguistic richness that still characterizes Mexico was once the norm over much of the continent. In South America, hundreds of languages were wiped out following the Spanish conquest, but the continent's remaining 640 tongues are still remarkably diverse.
Half of world's languages may become extinct by year 2100. A new report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) states that half of all modern languages may vanish by the year 2100. UNESCO says many languages are already considered to be endangered. Here are some interesting facts about languages: There are 6,912 languages in the world.
There are thirteen languages that are spoken by more than 100 million people. Approximately 2,000 languages are spoken by less than 1,000 people. Read more... Professor K. Endangered languages. It is estimated that, if nothing is done, half of 6000 plus languages spoken today will disappear by the end of this century. With the disappearance of unwritten and undocumented languages, humanity would lose not only a cultural wealth but also important ancestral knowledge embedded, in particular, in indigenous languages. However, this process is neither inevitable nor irreversible: well-planned and implemented language policies can bolster the ongoing efforts of speaker communities to maintain or revitalize their mother tongues and pass them on to younger generations.The aim of UNESCO’s Endangered Languages Programme is to support communities, experts and governments by producing, coordinating and disseminating : tools for monitoring, advocacy, and assessment of status and trends in linguistic diversity,services such as policy advice, technical expertise and training, good practices and a platform for exchange and transfer of skills.
Last Words: The Dying of Languages. New dynamism in cultural, intellectual influences in the Asian century. Author: Jiemian Yang, SIIS The Asian century, or Pacific century, has become a catchphrase that emphasises economic dynamism and shifts in political power. But the cultural and intellectual aspects have rather been neglected. In the coming 25–50 years, three trends in Asia are likely to develop in the context of continuous globalisation, evolving regionalism and the ongoing information revolution. Asia will develop a greater sense of regional awareness and cohesion. The region is still compartmentalised into Northeast, Southeast, South, Central and West Asia.
But the region’s current collaborative efforts — such as the ASEAN-Plus formula, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation — will gradually lead it towards a greater level of pan-Asian cooperation. The global configuration of power will become more evenly distributed between established and emerging powers, and Asia will be a very important component of the latter. "Premarital Sex Can Be Involved Even When...": Parineeti Chopra | Bollywood Videos. Global Bollywood. Indonesians Protest “Immoral” Miss World - Asia-Pacific.
JAKARTA – Indonesian Muslims ramped up their protests against Miss World pageant on Wednesday, September 4, as protests began to spread across the Muslim majority country days before the contest starts. “Miss World is an immoral event,” one protester shouted to the crowd in Bandung, Agence France Presse (AFP) report on Wednesday, September 4. “If it goes ahead, we will all be punished by God,” he added as some 300 protesters responded with chants of “God is great”. Anger has been growing at the decision to stage the Miss World beauty pageant in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation.
Yesterday, about 200 protesters marched to the MNC Tower, the building that houses the local organizer of the contest, in the Indonesian capital Jakarta. They held up banners with “Reject Miss World that exploits women” and “Go to hell Miss World” on them, and shouted “Allah akbar,” or God is great, outside the building, which was guarded by 300 police. "The contest will invite danger and vice. Defense. Southeast Asian Punk. I just returned from a 4-week jaunt around Sumatra; the last stop was Banda Aceh itself. I had heard about this story before my trip and was pleasantly surprised to learn that rumors of punk rock Indonesian youth were true.
My first exposure occurred in an internet cafe run by a group of young punks. The screensaver on my computer featured a The Exploited logo, and the kids working there cranked up some fast angry music (an American band I think) and sand along perfectly in English. These kids had bleach streaks in their hair, piercings and tattoos. It was mightily cool. During the next few weeks I ran into many kids who professed love for punk or rock and roll in general.
In the town of Bukittingi I was shadowed at the market by a college kid who peppered me with questions in English - the usual "Where are you from, mister? " "Grunge! " When I told him that not only was I from Seattle, but had in fact seen Nirvana many times when they were coming up, I think the kid nearly fainted... Asian Youth in Transition. Globalisation Asia-Pacific cultural shif. Globalisation prompts Asia-Pacific cultural shift It's goodbye homogeneity, hello diversity, as organisations in Asia-Pacific wake up to the realities of globalisation. A recent study of the diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategies of 31 companies across the region, by global human resources consultancy Mercer, showed that most participating organisations had a D&I strategy in place, while those that did not are making plans to step into the loop.
Topping corporate D&I agendas was gender, followed by multinational and ethnic mix. When asked to name their top three D&I strategies from a choice of seven different subjects, 74 per cent of respondent organisations cited gender as the main focus. Attracting diverse talent was next in line, with 45 per cent citing national culture and 40 per cent citing race/ethnicity mix, with "race" defined as nationality and "ethnicity" as different groups within a single national culture. Retired Husband Syndrome. By Barbara Lawrence The unflattering terms many Japanese women use to describe their retired husbands, “Sodaigomi” or oversized garbage, and “nureochiba” or wet fallen leave (sic) (Star.com) serve as markers along our own road to retirement and suggest the need for alternative paths.
For older Japanese, brought up to believe women were subservient to men, the husband’s retirement can be so difficult that experts estimate as many as 60% of wives of Japanese retirees suffer debilitating physical symptoms. These health problems, now known as “Retired Husband Syndrome” include stomach ulcers, slurring of speech, rashes around the eyes, growths in the throat, palpitations, tension headaches and depression (www.thestar.com) as well as “agitation, gas, bloating, muscle aches, and other symptoms of stress,” (Johnson, 1984, p. 542). In 1991 Dr. RHS is exacerbated both by tradition and change. RHS has been particularly striking in Japan, but Dr. Selected ReferencesABC News. Cohen, Gene. Star.com. Korean Women Sexually Conservative. ( Source: Naver ) As they say, first impressions last, and my own first introduction to Korean sexual politics came with a bang when the scandal over the Baek Ji-young (백지영) sex tape erupted in late-2000.
The way she was treated by the Korean media was hypocritical and shocking, and confirmed what I’d learned at university: Korea was a deeply patriarchal and sexually-conservative society. Or at least, as the “Korean Gender Guy,”™ that’s what I’d like to pretend informed my first year in Korea. The truth is, I barely noticed at the time, being rather more concerned with getting into my Korean girlfriend’s pants. But they also say that the best way to learn a new culture is to sleep with the locals, and what I learned about sexual politics that way was no less important for being so base: the books were simply wrong about how prudish Koreans were. I’ve been poking fun at the huge gap between image and reality ever since. ( Source: RaySoda ) Mr Kang: “Today, we are going to meet Ms.
Ms.