Kathmandu, February 21
The Language Commission has started the preservation of 37 languages in Nepal that have less than 1,000 native speakers and hence are on the brink of extinction.
At a seminar jointly organised by the commission, Nepal Academy and UNESCO here today on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, it was shared that among the 37 languages in Nepal, 23 were on the verge of extinction.
Presenting a working paper, the commission’s Chairperson Lava Deo Awasthi said that the commission began the preservation of those languages in association with the University Grants Commission.
Inaugurating the event, the academy’s Chancellor Ganga Prasad Uprety said that the programme was organised to support preservation as well as conservation of all mother languages in a multilingual society like Nepal’s. Similarly, the secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Maheshwar Neupane, viewed that the state should ensure that mechanism, infrastructures and human resources to provide education to students in their respective mother languages as mandated by the constitution.
