Dadang Sunendar, the head of language development for the Culture and Education Ministry recently stated that 139 local Indonesian languages are on the brink of extinction. With 707 languages, Indonesia has the second largest number of languages in the world. Only Papua New Guinea has more, with 839. There are several factors that cause a language to decline, including war, major natural disasters, mixed marriages, and geographical conditions. A language is considered “alive” as long as there is one native speaker who still speaks it.
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Pray for workers who are learning language, especially those who are learning a local language, as those are often much more difficult than Indonesian. Also pray for those who are doing Bible and Christian literature translation.
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