austraLasia #2023

Languages for communicating Salesian culture and communication in cyberspace

ROME: 8th January 2008 --  This year has been proclaimed by the UN as the 'International Year of Languages'. Amongst other activities it will feature several conferences in our region: two, back-to-back in Thailand in July (Language development, revitalization and multilingual education, and a UNESCO-based conference on language diversity for national unity), one in China (Shanghai, Translation and cultural diversity), and yet another in Hanoi on spoken language technologies for under-resourced languages).
    It would be worth noting the EAO Region's efforts in this direction: the region, interestingly enough, contains one half of the world's 6,000 or so languages (51.8% according to Ethnologue, the most authoritative source on this issues), making it, if I am not mistaken, the Salesian region with the greatest language diversity of all - not that members of the Salesian Family are representative of all those languages!
    The EAO Region has adopted English as a lingua franca, but with a view that reflects the United Nations theme for this year's IYL: multilingualism - unity in diversity.  How does that come about in practice?  One of the Congregation's recent initiatives in cyberspace has been SDL or Salesian Digital Library.  It was 'born' in our region, of open source software developed in New Zealand, and adapted by a member of the region for Salesian purposes.  The view taken is that 'every language should have the opportunity to serve as a vehicle for culture and communication in cyberspace'.
    You can see for yourself.  Given the theoretically unlimited capacity of SDL, it has already begun to store a vast repository of Salesian information in languages spoken in our region - and this includes, given the 'Salesian' tag, Italian as well since a number of confreres are either of Italian origin or learned Italian through their years abroad.  For example, SDL contains more than 6,000 letters of Mons. Cimatti in a special 'Cimatti' collection, to which it is now adding photographs, music and other Cimatti-related documentation.  There is, frankly, nowhere else you can find this material.
    The Thai collection is steadily building up - every few weeks the province sends along new material, most of it in Thai, some of it in English. The Japanese collection is one of the largest of the Asian language collections on SDL at the moment. Korean is not far behind.
    It is not only Asian languages that are represented - you will find a basic Bahasa Indonesia and Tetum collection as well.  In fact there is only one limitation to representation of our languages for Salesian communication and culture in cyberspace - the readiness of people to provide the material.  The offer is there; provinces are encouraged to make use of it.  You will find the link below, or on Bosconet itself.
    (On another issue - still struggling to get the forum working, to keep a balance between tight security and the ability for you to get in!  At the moment I think it's erring on the 'tight security' side!  Try please, and let me know if you succeed or fail).
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 AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific.  It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.  For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use Bosconet-wiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - just go to Bosconet, click on austraLasia 2008 in the sidebar. You will see the RSS orange icon in your browser address bar - add it from there.  Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at at http://sdl.sdb.org

Title: australasia 2023
Subject and key words: EAO General SDL languages Salesian culture communication
Date (year): 2008
ID: 2000-2099|2023