The Less Frequent & Marginalized Languages (LFM) Team made huge strides in 2023 to uphold Respond Crisis Translation’s values in our fight against language injustices around the world, particularly for speakers of marginalized and Indigenous languages! The LFM Team is a truly global collective of language activists, with members across 86 countries representing over 100 languages!

Every project has a story, and most of the lives that we try to improve by providing language support are a true example of survival, resilience, and courage. Respond Crisis Translation’s Spanish Team worked on a huge variety of projects in 2023 …

The Afghan Languages Team accomplished remarkable feats in 2023.

We take pride in successfully concluding 951 projects, offering our assistance to nearly ten thousand individuals. Around the clock, we collaborated to provide language support across diverse areas such as immigration and asylum, legal matters, asylum clinics, education …

February 24, 2024, marked two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Respond Crisis Translation’s Ukrainian and Russian (UA RU) Languages Team has been working around the clock since the invasion to support Ukrainian people fighting for their lives and freedom.

A Respond Crisis Translation client who was politically persecuted in Venezuela was just granted asylum, alongside his family, after a year-long case!

Respond’s founder and executive director Ariel Koren joined KJZZ, the National Public Radio member station in Phoenix, Arizona, to talk about a new rule requiring asylum seekers to bring their own interpreters during USCIS interviews

von Raman Salah

Eine Auswirkung von Linguizid - der kalkulierten Auslöschung einer Sprache - besteht darin, dass in Zeiten von Katastrophen und Notfällen staatliche Reaktions- und Hilfsmaßnahmen wie wichtige Informationen und Hilfsangebote nicht jener Sprache zugänglich sind, ...

von Leila Lorenzo, Raman Salah

Die kurdische Sprache ist die 40. meistgesprochene Sprache unter den 7.000 Sprachen der Welt.

Kurdisch sprechende Menschen sind über Grenzen hinweg verstreut, was zu verschiedenen sprachlichen Umfeldern führt, die durch unterschiedliche staatliche Maßnahmen geprägt sind.

von Raman Salah

Für viele Menschen, mit denen Respond gesprochen hat, ist die kurdische Sprache ein wesentlicher Bestandteil der kurdischen Identität.

„Wie wir auf Kurdisch sagen… unsere Sprache ist unsere Identität.“ - Gordyaen Jermayi (Betonung hinzugefügt)

von Raman Salah

„Diese Sprache ist meine Sprache. Als jemand, dessen Sprache eingeschränkt, verboten und untersagt wurde, und viele Menschen ins Gefängnis kamen oder bestraft wurden, weil sie in ihrer Sprache sprachen oder schrieben, weil sie in ihr veröffentlichten - ja, ich fühle definitiv eine persönliche Verbindung zum Konzept der Sprachgewalt.“ - Berivan*, Sorani-Sprecherin aus Bashur

von Raman Salah

Obwohl sprachliche Gewalt in vielen Bereichen vorkommt, von Katastrophenhilfe über humanitäre Hilfe bis hin zu rechtlicher, medizinischer und psychologischer Unterstützung, ist das Schulsystem einer der heimtückischsten und generationenübergreifend bedeutsamsten Schauplätze institutionalisierter sprachlicher Gewalt.

von Raman Salah

„Ich kann meine Sprache vor dem Vergessen bewahren, indem ich lese und schreibe und mit meinen Freund*innen und meiner Familie in meiner Muttersprache kommuniziere.“ - Tavge*, eine Lehrerin, Übersetzerin und Kurmandschi-Sprecherin aus Rojav

February 6 marks the one-year anniversary of the Turkey-Syria earthquake that killed more than 59,000 people, one of the region’s largest natural disasters in history.

The earthquake disproportionately devastated Kurdish areas; meanwhile, disaster response was discriminatory toward ethnic minorities, especially Kurds.

By Raman Salah

One effect of linguicide – the calculated destruction of a language – is that during times of disaster and emergency, government response and relief measures like critical information and outreach are not accessible in a language that many of the people most affected by the crisis can understand.

By Leila Lorenzo, Raman Salah

The Kurdish language is the 40th most spoken language among the world’s 7,000 languages.

Kurdish speakers are dispersed across borders, leading to diverse linguistic environments shaped by different state policies. There are an estimated 35 million Kurdish speakers representing linguistic minorities spread across five different countries …

By Raman Salah

Kurdish language is part and parcel of Kurdish identity, for many of the people with whom Respond spoke.

“As we say in Kurdish… our language is our identity.” – Gordyaen Jermayi (emphasis added)

By Raman Salah

“This language is my language. As someone whose language has been restricted, banned, prohibited, and many people went to jail and got punished for speaking or writing in, for publishing in it – yeah, definitely, I feel a personal connection to the concept of language violence.” – Berivan*, Sorani speaker in Bashur

By Raman Salah

While language violence occurs in many contexts, from disaster relief and humanitarian aid to legal, medical, and psychological support, one of the most insidious and intergenerationally significant sites of institutional language violence is the school system.

By Raman Salah

“I can protect my language from being forgotten by reading and writing, communicating with friends and family in my mother tongue.” Tavge*, a teacher, translator, and Kurmanji speaker from Rojava

Kurdish people in their daily lives and in their relationship with their stories, communities, and dialect, are at the forefront of the fight for language justice across Kurdistan.

Respond Crisis Translation is a collective of language activists providing compassionate, effective, and trauma-informed interpretation and translation services for migrants, refugees, and anyone experiencing language barriers. We are looking for an enthusiastic volunteer that can help our team define and implement a strategy for our social media channels.