Language

 

Reviving Our Culture, Mapping Our Future
This tells the story of a special gathering in Venda, South Africa and a community process in eco-cultural mapping. Indigenous leaders from Altai (Russia) and the Colombian Amazon and NGO representatives from Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa accompany the Tshidvizhe community as they explore a simple yet powerful way to express the past and present of their territory and livelihoods onto hand-drawn maps. The maps highlight the importance of their culture, sacred sites and territory, and empower them to map the future towards which they need to strive.

 

Language and the wealth gap: Phiwayinkosi Mbuyazi at TEDxSoweto
Phiwayinkosi Mbuyazi explores the often-neglected connection between language, and closing the wealth gap. His simple proposal is that we need to start investing in providing education in languages that people can understand. In this TEDxSoweto 2012 talk, he draws our attention to the blind-spotted dangers of not doing so.

 

Mobile games that change culture: Anne Githuku-Shongwe at TEDxSoweto 2012
Anne Githuku-Shongwe uses the power of digital games to unlock the potential of young Africans throughout the continent. A mother of three children, she argues passionately and eloquently that it is through play and simulation that we can shift their most limiting belief systems and mental models.

 

Why Wikipedia is Important to the Future of the Arabic Language Internet
Barry Newstead, Chief Global Development Officer, Wikimedia Foundation

 

Saki Mafundikwa: Ingenuity and elegance in ancient African alphabets
From simple alphabets to secret symbolic languages, graphic designer Saki Mafundikwa celebrates the many forms of written communication across the continent of Africa. He highlights the history and legacy that are embodied in written words and symbols, and urges African designers to draw on these graphic forms for fresh inspiration. It's summed up in his favorite Ghanaian glyph, Sankofa, which means "return and get it" -- or "learn from the past."

 

Keith Chen: Could your language affect your ability to save money?
What can economists learn from linguists? Behavioral economist Keith Chen introduces a fascinating pattern from his research: that languages without a concept for the future -- "It rain tomorrow," instead of "It will rain tomorrow" -- correlate strongly with high savings rates.

 

The Future of Creativity and Culture
The Future of Creativity and Culture: Futurist Gerd Leonhard's Keynote speech XMediaLab Basel 2012

 

 

TEDxSomerville - Ray Matsumiya - The Connectivity of Cultures
Ray is the Executive Director of the University of the Middle East Project (UME), a non-profit organization with offices in Somerville. Ray is a deeply committed to promoting mutual understanding between peoples and cultures in order to contribute to a more peaceful world. To this end, UME has implemented 37 educational and cross cultural programs including a Sister Cities partnership between Somerville and Tiznit, Morocco that has impacted hundreds of people in both communities through visiting delegations, professional collaborations, student projects and artistic exchanges.

 

Guosa Language ECOWAS Common Autentic and United Future Lingua Franca
The need for of a common indigenous lingua franca in the West African Regional Countries or the ECOWAS is well over due. Lack of this essential vehicle of unity and identity did not only destabilize and destroy the socio-political and industrial strategies of the West African countries; it raised data or questions which borders on the basis for cohesion, comprehension, industrial and technological revolution and the unity in such diversity because language plays a unifying role in the beginning, development, beliefs, and customs of any group of people.

 

The Future of Languages
The Future of Languages - Professor Gunther Kress (Institute of Education, University of London)

 

 

What is the future of the English language?
What is the future of the English language?

 

 

 

What is the future of philosophy?
An exploration of philosophy's place in modern society.

 

 

The Future of Cultural Heritage in Global Engagement (Gimbel)
David Nelson Gimbel, founder and director of Archaeos, Inc., discusses the complex interactions between the cultural heritage of the past and the humanist philosophy of the present that is determining the fate of archaeological sites around the world.

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