FLI: A strategy for revitalizing endangered languages and cultures

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2013-02-28

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Northern Pakistan is home to more than 25 distinct languages, many of them with a relatively small number of speakers. Due to a lack of institutional support, many of these languages have been under the threat of extinction. The Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI) was established in 2002 with the goal to preserve and promote these languages by building capacity among the people from local communities in the area of language documentation, multilingual education, literature production and organizational development. In addition, FLI also publishes books about the languages and cultures of the region, runs advocacy campaigns for the language communities and builds bridges among people in the region. External linguists and specialists, in the area of multilingual education and management, work as mentors and master trainers. They trained a core group of people from the language communities as trainers through both long- and short-duration training interventions. In spite of many challenges, FLI has made some significant progress towards achieving its goals during the last ten years. The situation as a whole in the country and among these language communities is very different from the way it was back in 2002. Many trainees of FLI are actively involved in preserving and developing their mother tongues. Some have formed community-based organizations and established mother-tongue-based education programmes, and one of the provincial governments has passed bills to establish a government department to develop the languages in the province. FLI’s administrative and training responsibilities have also transitioned to Pakistani citizens who have benefited the most from the training, although these external experts continue to provide consultancy and training services to FLI’s local leadership.

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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

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