H.E. Ambassador Ma Jianchun, in an interview with reporters explained that language is a very important symbol and cultural imprint of civilisation. He revealed that Chinese language is one of the United Nation’s official languages.
Ambassador Jianchun added that Chinese language plays an important role in promoting exchange and communication amongst different civilisations and amongst different countries in the world.
He pointed out that learning a particular language is a better way of helping people to understand certain civilisations, while adding that mutual learning of language is an important way and method to build a better world and a better life for the people throughout the world.
According to him, Chinese language teaching was introduced in The Gambia about six years ago when President Adama Barrow visited China at the invitation of President Xi Jinping of China and witnessed the signing ceremony of the agreement to build up a Confucius Institute in The Gambia.
Giving a report on the importance of Chinese language, Stephen Cole, said 11 years ago the United Nations celebrated Chinese Language Day to promote multi-lingualism and cultural diversity. He pointed out that language learning can help break down barriers, cross cultures and form a bridge that unites everyone.
Mr. Cole added that the United Nations has six official languages namely: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish but about 1.4 billion people which is around 17% of the world’s population speak some form of Chinese as their first language making it the most spoken language on the entire planet.
He adduce that Chinese one of the oldest languages still in use today with its origins dating back to 5000 years which means that Chinese people can now still read the words of their far distant ancestors.
He added that the Chinese then had a deep rooted trust in their ancient wisdom, while noting that for them, history and languages are completely intertwined. “So to study the language is to get a glimpse into thousands of years of incredible continuity and gain extraordinary insights into their history, their culture and most importantly their values.”
Chinese language was established as an official language of the United Nations in 1946. However, in the early years, Chinese was not commonly used in the work of the United Nations but the situation improved after the restoration of the lawful seat of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations in 1971 and in 1973; the General Assembly included Chinese as a working language.
