News
UNESCO supports the launch of a MOOC of initiation to Dongba script, "the last living pictographic script in the world”
Among approximately 7,000 languages spoken and signed in the world today, an estimated 40% are endangered: on average, one language disappears every two weeks. When a language becomes extinct, an entire culture and knowledge system is at risk of being forgotten forever.
Digital technologies are sometimes accused of homogenizing languages and cultures, with fewer than a hundred languages being used online. But such technologies can also be allies for safeguarding and revitalizing this linguistic and cultural diversity, which is part of the heritage of humanity. This is precisely the aim of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032), led by UNESCO since its launch last year.
In line with the objectives of the Decade, UNESCO is collaborating with the , the and the , in launching a Massive Open Online Course – a MOOC – as an introduction to Dongba, the script of the Naxi ethnic minority in Yunnan, China.
This MOOC, available in four languages (French, English, Chinese and German), is open to a wide international public and aims to reach hundreds of thousands of learners from a hundred countries. Its objective is to transmit a highly original writing style and to enable all participants to contribute to the safeguarding of this unique cultural heritage classified as "Memory of the World" by UNESCO in 2003. The longer-term vision of the partnership is to get a better understanding of the use of digital tools to support language development, policies and preservation.
The Naxi community numbers around 300,000 people living in Northern Yunnan in south-west China. The Dongba script used by the Naxi is considered the last living pictographic script in the world and is at risk of disappearing, as only a very small number of people can actually use the language. Dongba pictograms have a strong cultural role for the Naxi and are a manifestation of the beliefs of the Naxi people: a form of shamanism based on the cult of nature, associated with popular beliefs and Tibetan cultural influences.
UNESCO strongly supports the use of massive, free of access digital tools such as MOOCs to help protecting endangered knowledge throughout the world, for the purpose of safeguarding and transmitting our human heritage, and to promote linguistic and cultural diversity.
The potential of digital technologies was a key theme of the Transforming Education Summit hosted last September by UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The "Gateways to Public Digital Learning" initiative was launched at the Summit, to ensure that every learner, teacher, and family can easily access, find, and use high-quality and curriculum-aligned digital education content to advance their learning. It will build on the success of the , through which UNESCO and its partners have made available more than 10,000 storybooks and learning resources in more than 100 languages.
With this MOOC, UNESCO hopes to mark the beginning of an important collaboration with INALCO and the University of Geneva, working to strengthen the linguistic, cultural and epistemic diversity that characterizes our common heritage.
