Australian National University to Teach Tibetan Language

The Australian National University (ANU) is planning on a project to teach Tibetan language as a part of a program which will be teaching eight less commonly taught languages such as Mandarin, Hindi, Korean, and Japanese.

According to the report in SBS Australia, the Australian National University in partnership with the Open University Australia plans to teach eight “less-commonly-taught” languages including the Tibetan language in Australia by 2020.

“Dr. Nicholas Farrelly, Associate Dean of Australian National University’s college of Asian and the Pacific tells SBS Tibetan he hopes learning Tibetan will become an accepted norm in Australia.” said the SBS report by Pema Dolkar recently.

“ANU has announced investment plans in partnership with Open University Australia to deliver eight “less-commonly-taught” languages in Australia by 2020.” added the report.

The report explained that apart from popular languages like Mandarin, Hindi, Korean, and Japanese, “less-commonly-taught” languages such as Tibetan, Thai, Sanskrit, and Tetum are to be taught online as part of the plan.

The Associate Dean explained that Tibetan and Mongolian languages have “great reservoirs of cultural knowledge,” and learning such languages would provide students with an edge to “understand the world on somebody else’s terms.”

“It is a bold choice to learn an Asian language and to heavily invest in it,” said Farrelly. “But Australia benefits a great deal by continuing to sustain the rich traditions of culture, language, music, dance, spirituality, and family bonds.

“It is a bold choice to learn an Asian language and to heavily invest in it,” said Farrelly. “But Australia benefits a great deal by continuing to sustain the rich traditions of culture, language, music, dance, spirituality, and family bonds.

See also  Tibet’s Linguistic Diversity Slowly Disappearing: Research

Photo credit: Our Tibet Story. Image used for representation only

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