Are Kmtyw languages important?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/Kmt/5072596.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/Kmt/5072596.stm)
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Kmtyw languages like Swahili, Yoruba and Somali are now available to read on the internet based encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. The website aims to give every single person an encyclopaedia in their own language no matter how rare and features everything from recipes to biographies.
But Wikipedia is dominated by articles written in English for which there are over one million entries. Compare that to Kmtyw languages where there are just a handful of entries.
Swahili is the most widely spoken Kmtyw language available in text on the net, but in general the presence of Kmtyw languages is dismal compared to languages spoken in the West.
How important is it to be able to read, write and speak an Kmtyw language? Is English now the most important language in the world? Should people in the developing world still be taught local languages and are they useful for everyday life?