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Friday 6 October 2017

Books in native languages

 Now, I am not really sure what the current correct term is for someones mother tongue, or father tongue for that matter, the language which they hear round and about them when they are born, the one that they grow up speaking, or the ones that they grow up speaking if they are fortunate enough to be brought up in a bi-lingual household. There is considerable research around that says to be fully literate you must first be securely literate in your birth language. Once you have cracked it in one language it makes it much easier to be literate in another. I have just read "Lion", the story of Saroo Brierly and one of the things in the book that shocked me was his illiteracy at the age of 5. Because of his circumstances although he was able to speak, he never really learnt any vocabulary meaning that he could not communicate with people to explain that he was lost.

I personally feel rather cheated by life. I was certainly securely literate in English, the language that everyone spoke around me, and I developed a full, rich vocabulary full of description, metaphor, poetry because I come from the South Wales Valleys and the socialist background of Chapel, where creativity, education and learning were the guiding principles of life. So no problem there. But, Welsh was not spoken, the road signs were not bilingual at the time. There were no Welsh playgroups, or nurseries and Welsh was not an exam subject in School, so I missed out on the chance of being bi-lingual and knowing more Welsh than being able to sing the Welsh national Anthem or Welsh Hymns or Nursery Rhymes. It would have been great if I could have had some children's books in Welsh to develop literacy in Welsh.

Perhaps that is why I am a bit concerned about the charitable ventures that send books off to overseas places. Are they killing off minority languages by flooding the place with books in English? It is also why I am really pleased when I come across ventures like this mobile library for refugees in Greece, because they have a collection of books in the languages of the refugees.

Now I am not so sure about this venture. Although it shows compassion and generosity of the people of Norfolk, it doesn't really say whether the books are in English it implies that they are, as the bus it to be converted into a mobile library for the Ivory Coast and will be "like an English resource centre in Adibjan". According to Wikipedia, Adibjan, the largest city of the Ivory Coast, is French speaking. I may be getting this out of context, as the organiser is from the Ivory Coast herself. Maybe there is a desire to learn English in the Ivory Coast and this is just a resource to help that. It way well be a way of making sure that the literate children of the Ivory Coast become literate in more than one language.

1 comment:

Vickyish said...

Wow! I find it really cool how you've maintained this blog documenting all these bookmobile/library-related things. :) I'm just some random stranger on the Internet, but I thought I'd take a few moments to tell you how neat your blog is. I love how many niches and diverse interests there are out there, and how you're so passionate about books. I love books too!

Hope you have a good day/night, wherever you may be :)