Garifuna Language Made Easier to Teach

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Over the past century, around four hundred languages have gone extinct and most linguists estimate that more than fifty percent of the world’s remaining six thousand five hundred languages will be gone by the end of this century. And while languages are dying, many others are endangered or threatened, most being in the Americas. Back in 2003, Belize signed on to UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and since then, the National Garifuna Council and local agencies have been actively engaging in initiatives to preserve the Garifuna language and its culture. While it is also spoken in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras, in the past two decades, there has been a decline in the use of the language, even in Belize. Now, a local organisation hopes to make its own mark in safeguarding the language and other intangible elements of the culture. On Monday, they started a training workshop in Belize City, which was prefaced with a week of similar training in Dangriga. Andrea Polanco shares more.