Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 16 – Faced by mounting
pressure against non-Russian languages, the VKontakte “Natural Multi-Lingual” group
(vk.com/polilingvismo) has taken the unusual step of distributing via websites
in some of the non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation a Finnish pamphlet
promoting bilingualism.
The 14-page Russian-language pamphlet,
entitled “Multi-Lingualism is a Real Source of Wealth,” was written for immigrants
to that Finno-Ugric country to encourage them to retain their native languages
even as they learned Finnish. (The complete text is available on the Mari Uver portal at mariuver.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/mnogoyazychie-podlinnoe_bogatstvo.pdf).
The first section of the pamphlet is
devoted to “why your native language is important for your children”(mariuver.com/2019/11/16/rod-jazyk-vazhen/). It reads as follows:
“Your
native language is important for your children for many reasons: it is the
basis for the balanced development of their intellectual capacities and habits
of emotional life, it is an important part of their ideas about their origins
and roots,, it is a connecting link between children and those close to them,
and it is an instrument for the
acquisition of new knowledge and creative thought.
“If
a child masters the languages native to you, this will help strengthen his
self-consciousness. If a child learns to value his roots, he will grow up as an
integration personality open to other cultures
“You
will help a child if you sow your open attitude toward various languages and
explain that multilingualism is what should be strived for. You will support
your child in mastering the Finnish language if you sent him to a Finnish
kindergarten, school, or play group However, you should not independently instruct
the child in Finnish.
“Your
task is to speak with the child in your native language. No one can do this for
you. And if your child gains the chance to grow up multi-lingual, this will be
a plus both for him and for all your family.”
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