杏MAP导航

By Sr Bernadette Mary Reis, fsp

Today is . Promoted by UNESCO, this day seeks to promote lingual and cultural diversity, as well as the ability to speak more than one language.

Safeguarding one's mother tongue

杏MAP导航 Francis supports the use of one鈥檚 mother tongue. 鈥淭he mother tongue is a bastion against ideological and cultural colonialization, and against a dominant way of thinking, which destroys diversity,鈥� he said during his homily at Santa Marta in November 2017. For 杏MAP导航 Francis, not being able to speak in one鈥檚 native language is a way of erasing history in order to undermine freedom of thought. Each dialect, 杏MAP导航 Francis says, 鈥渉as historical roots.鈥�

Memory and dialect

Two things defend a people when confronted with colonialization, 杏MAP导航 Francis believes: memory and dialect. 鈥淲ho preserves memory and dialect?鈥� he asks. 鈥淲omen, who are stronger than men,鈥� the 杏MAP导航 responded. It is only the strength that women have that 鈥渋s capable of resisting a cultural and ideological colonialization,鈥� he continues. And history bears witness鈥攆rom the Bible all the way to the dictatorial genocide in Europe in the last century.

Faith is passed on through the mother tongue

Faith is transmitted through 鈥淢ommy and Daddy鈥檚 language,鈥� through 鈥済randma and grandpa鈥檚 language,鈥� 杏MAP导航 Francis said on 7 January of this year to the parents whose children he baptized that day. 鈥淒o not forget that. Your task is to pass on the faith鈥攂ut do it with the dialect of the love of your home,鈥� he said. True faith, the 杏MAP导航 affirms, is learned from our mother鈥檚 lips, through that language which only the child can understand.