Director Institute for itaukei Language and Culture, Emosi Caniogo

The Institute for iTaukei Language and Culture revitalization approach lies in the International Decade for Indigenous Language program.

Director Institute for itaukei Language and Culture, Emosi Caniogo says that the Ministry is utilizing the decade program to help safeguard and promote the use of the iTaukei dialect and language.

“The International Decade for Indigenous Language is a program under the convention that was rectified which will enable us to do language mapping and also culture mapping as these two goes together, the program is ongoing and in this 10 years in this decade program we will work with relevant stakeholders in terms of revitalizing the language and also safeguard, promote this use of old native languages and dialect.”

USP Teaching Assistant Waisake Raliwalala says one of the main contributing factors to the extinction of a few iTaukei dialects apart from the people movement is that elders are not encouraging the younger generation to use the dialect.

“Obviously the main reason would be they not using it every day, and not told or taught to them by elders or parents”

He also confirmed that another area the Ministry targets is the use of virtual AI platform available to promote the importance of using the iTaukei dialect.