The United Nations proclaims 2008 International Year of Languages

In the plenary session held on the 16th of May 2007, the General Assembly of the United Nations, recognizing that genuine multilingualism promotes unity in diversity and international understanding, decided to proclaim 2008 the International Year of  Languages. In addition, the Assembly made a call to the states and to the Secretariat for them to work in favour conservation and defence of the languages globally, and requested the Secretariat to appoint a coordinator for multilingualism.

The Assembly, also recognizing that the United Nations pursues multilingualism as a means of promoting, protecting and preserving diversity of languages and cultures globally, stated the action would allow to guarantee a “global” approach to multilingualism and would promote a reasonable vision of multilingualism in the United Nations. In addition, the Assembly indicated that linguistic diversity is the foundation of cultural diversity, and in this sense it hopes, therefore, that the next resolution on multilingualism will include an explicit reference to the need for linguistic diversity in peacekeeping operations.

Besides proclaiming the International Year of Languages, the Assembly asked the Secretary General to ensure that all linguistic services of the United Nations have the same resources, to resist the increasing dominion of English over the other five UN official languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian.

The idea to dedicate a whole year to languages arose about two years ago, when, on the occasion of the UNESCO 33rd General Conference, held at the end of 2005 in Paris, Austria proposed the idea, which other states supported. With this resolution at the highest level, the recognition of linguistic diversity and the importance of their promotion and maintenance turn to international instances.