Homo Festival dei Diritti, delle Culture e dei Popoli 3° ediz
December 20, 2019 6:00 pm - December 20, 2019 8:00 pm
Europe and North America | Italy | san benedetto del tronto | Viale De Gasperi, Sala Consiliare
Others
The first Italian-Lakota dictionary will come
out on December 18 with the aim of helping save
the endangered language of the Sioux. The
dictionary, ‘Lessico Lakota’ (Lakota
Lexicon), was compiled by Lakota experts
Raffaella Milandri and Myriam Blasini. It will
be published by a publisher based in San
Benedetto del Tronto in Marche, Mauna Kea. The
dictionary is being published by the end of this
year so as to mark the International Year for
Indigenous Languages, proclaimed by the United
Nations. Languages such as those spoken by
native Americans are under threat, explained
Milandri. “In an alert sounded by the UN
it is stressed that of the 7,000 languages
spoken around the world, more than 40% are at
risk of disappearing inside a few years”,
they said. Given that Lakota was until recently
a spoken and not written language, they said,
“we went to the most authoritative
sources”.
ì”This book aims to give a precious
contribution to the culture and identity of the
Sioux-Lakota people, and provide some measure of
justice for the violent cultural prevarication
suffered by millions of Native Americans,”
said Milandri. “Let’s not forget
that the Lakota language, along with that of the
Navajo and others, contributed through the
famous code talkers to saving the world during
the Second World War, using these languages as
cods that were undecipherable for the Nazi
criminals”.