Celebrate Canada's National Indigenous Languages Day with Mango!

March 31 is National Indigenous Languages Day in Canada. It's a day to celebrate Canada's 70+ indigenous languages as well as indigenous languages worldwide. It's also a day to remember all those who have worked to preserve these languages and to recollect Canada's history of forcibly separating indigenous children from their home languages in residential schools.

Looking for a way to celebrate? For adults, a great option is to try learning an indigenous language using one of Mango's free courses in endangered and indigenous languages! Here are some of the languages we offer:

But how about if you're looking for a way to celebrate with younger children? Well for kids we can recommend a great picture book! It's called What Makes Us Human written by Victor D. O. Santos (a former Mango!) with art by Anna Forlati. This book has been chosen by UNESCO to be one of its children's books for the the United Nations' Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022 - 2032), and is great for starting conversations with kids about the languages and cultures of the world.

This book, written as a poetic riddle, will take you through all the ways that language touches our day-to-day lives. With beautiful illustrations and a thought-provoking message, this book celebrates the diversity of languages and people, and can help introduce kids to language endangerment and why efforts to revitalize languages can also serve to revitalize cultures and lives.

You can find a copy of What Makes Us Human at your local library, or buy it online from Bookshop, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon.

Interested in learning more about this gorgeous book? Check out this interview we did with the book's author, Victor D. O. Santos, a former Mango and present-day linguist and children's book author!

We had a chat with Victor D. O. Santos, author of "What Makes Us Human," a book about languages and their importance in our lives. Here's what we learned!

• Question: Tell us a little about yourself. How did you find your way into being a children’s book author?

  Answer: I am a Brazilian-American professional linguist, husband, and dad who in 2016 started writing children’s stories to show my multicultural and multilingual children that they should be proud of having more than one language and culture (my wife is Ukrainian).

  After writing four books primarily on the topic of language and culture and a couple others on other themes, I wrote a book called My Dad, My Rock on the topic of fatherhood, illustrated by Anna Forlati (the same illustrator of What Makes Us Human) which went on to be selected by Kirkus Reviews as a Best Book of 2022 in the USA and to be translated into eight languages so far.

  

  That’s when I realized that the children’s books field was one that I had some potential to do well in and in fact, one I absolutely loved to be a part of. After that, Anna and I worked on our second book together, What Makes Us Human, which was published by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers and went on to be selected by UNESCO as an official children’s book for the United Nations International Decade of Indigenous Languages.

• Question: Why was "What Makes Us Human" the story you decided you wanted to tell?

  Answer: As a professional linguist, children’s book author, and father to two trilingual and multicultural children, I felt I was in a lucky position to write and create a picture book about the value of all languages and their vital connection to the people and cultures behind them.

  I also wanted to write a book that would draw attention to the fact that many of the world’s languages are quickly disappearing. In fact, at least 50% of the world’s 7.164 estimated living languages (Ethnologue, 2024) are expected to disappear by the end of year 2100 if urgent actions are not taken to protect them. And when a language dies, a whole culture can disappear with it. A beautifully unique way to view and understand the world. The loss of a language is a loss to all of humanity and to our cultural and linguistic toolbox.

• Question: Why do you think it’s important for young children to be thinking about the significance of language in daily life?

  Answer: Language is the main means through which we communicate our thoughts. It allows us to express ourselves, interact with others around us, and make sense of the world around us. The language we speak is very tightly connected to the culture in which that language developed and, as such, it’s hard to talk about culture without talking about language since they both reflect one another. When a language disappears, a completely unique way of understating the world disappears, as well as all the great and unique knowledge encoded in that language. Lastly, having good control of one’s mother tongue is a great way to discover new ways to be more precise and flexible in how we express our thoughts to ourselves and to others.

  Learning another language, on the other hand, opens many new doors that are only available when we speak that language and have access to a completely new way of thinking and a new culture. Research shows that speaking more than one language has many cognitive (better executive functioning), social (more empathetic behavior and more social opportunities), economic (higher salaries, on average), educational (bilinguals have better reading scores in their native language than their monolinguals counterparts do), and health benefits (lower incidence and later onset of Alzheimer’s). What Makes Us Human also has references to bilingualism and multilingualism.

• Question: This book was selected by UNESCO as an official children’s book for the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. Could you talk a little about what the International Decade of Indigenous Languages is and why this book supports their message?

  Answer: The International Decade of Indigenous Languages is intended to be a key period of ten years, in which the United Nations (especially through the leadership of UNESCO) aims to create sustainable and effective changes in social, cultural, and governmental dynamics that increase awareness about the importance of Indigenous languages around the world and the need to preserve them. Many of these languages are severely endangered, with only a small number of speakers.

  After hearing of What Makes Us Human and seeing the book, UNESCO decided to officially associate the book with the Decade as a way to significantly spread the word about the Decade and its message in a very concrete, physical form, especially to children. UNESCO is a co-publisher of the book in many editions, including the English one by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. The book is very clear in its message that all languages matter, are invaluable to its speakers and to humanity, and deserve to continue to exist.

To learn more about Victor Santos and his other books, check out his website or follow him on Instagram!