The Korean National Commission for UNESCO has launched a website for a project called ‘The Little Prince Global Read-Aloud’(www.motherlang2019.or.kr/eng), where visitors can listen to excerpts from The Little Prince, read by about 60 native speakers of 32 different languages.

The project is designed to help showcase the beauty and diversity of the world’s languages, and to encourage people to think about the importance of protecting mother languages, in commemoration of International Mother Language Day.

Volunteers, including colleagues from the German, French and Slovenian National Commissions for UNESCO and students from UNESCO Associated Schools, participated in the project, providing audio recordings of their reading of their favorite parts of The Little Prince.

As the celebrations of this year’s International Mother Language Day are focused on indigenous languages, the Korean National Commission is particularly pleased that a native speaker of the Jeju language, spoken mainly on South Korea’s Jeju Island and classified by UNESCO as a critically endangered language, was able to take part in the project.