Your translation of Rituraj's column from Himal Khabarpatrika ('Why English?', #246) is right on. A similar thing happened on 20 May, at the UNESCO Nepal office in Jawalakhel. A publication entitled Cultural and Religious Diversity: Dialogue and Development was launched to mark the world day for cultural diversity for dialogue and development. The audience was an eclectic mix of academics, local dignitaries and school children. All in all, an authentic UNESCO event: colourful, gentle and rather lacking in punch. The keynote address was delivered by Satya Mohan Joshi, life member of the Royal Nepal Academy, intellectual heavyweight and a great storyteller. He started by announcing (in Nepali) that he had been asked by UNESCO staff to speak in English on account of a few foreign guests. Why, I wondered? The audience was overwhelmingly Nepali. Would it not have been possible for Mr Joshi to deliver the talk in his beautiful Nepali and at the same time circulate an English translation for the few non-Nepali speaking expatriates present? The next UNESCO monograph in the pipeline is on the diversity and endangerment of languages spoken in Nepal, presently being prepared by a three-person team of professional linguists, including one senior Nepali scholar. It would be a move in the right direction for the opening ceremony to be in Nepali or one (or more) of Nepal's many languages and a Nepali edition of this monograph should certainly be published. Can an organisation have a compelling vision of implementing its mandate in Nepal, particularly when the dissemination of its own message remains restricted by its narrow frame of linguistic reference?

Mark Turin,
Digital Himalaya Project