As our neighbor to the south and our third largest trading partner, Mexico has been in the news quite a bit recently. We have heard news reports ranging from the strengthening value of the peso to swine flu.
However, I have seen relatively little about the significant increase of indigenous Mixtec and Zapotec speakers from the Mexican state of Oaxaca migrating to the United States. It is estimated that more than 100,000 Zapotecs and Mixtecs have immigrated to the United States over the last 20 years. The Zapotec and Mixtec ethnic groups are marked by incredible linguistic diversity. There are 64 separate Zapotec languages and approximately 57 different Mixtec languages.
What does this mean for education translation in the United States? It means that we need to start discussing language access and language translation services for this population. According to researcher Sarah Poole, by the year 2010 Mixtecs and Zapotecs will comprise 20 percent of the agricultural force in the United States. Currently, this population primarily resides in Southern California, but as they migrate across the country following agricultural cycles, school districts need to start thinking about adding these languages to their language translation services budgets.
Ultimately, the better prepared we are, the better equipped we will be to provide effective language translation services to these families.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
References:
K12Translate.com Home
Get in touch
1-800-737-8481
info@k12translate.com
Posts Tagged ‘Languages of Limited Diffusion’
On the Move from Oaxaca: Expanding Language Translation Services
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009New People, New Languages – Rare Languages Spoken in the United States
Monday, June 8th, 2009
As many teachers and administrators already know, requests for Languages of Limited Diffusion are on the rise among providers of K12 education language translation services. According to the UNESCO , in the world today, the number of people speaking lesser-known languages is 1.25 billion, or 20 percent of the world’s population.
Over the past five years, I have seen language requests expand outside the core languages of Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese and Chinese into languages rarely seen before in the United States such as Twi (Ghana), Karen (Myanmar/Burma) and Ilocano (Philipines).
On one hand, it is of vital importance for educators to be at the forefront of this movement in order to communicate effectively with English Language Learning (ELL) communities. On the other hand, rare languages pose significant challenges for providers of language translation services. These include limited translator availability, cost-prohibitive translations and low literacy rates within the target audience.
I will be spending the next several posts discussing new populations coming to the United States and different strategies to overcome some of the language translation challenges school districts face.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
