�� Mexico's indigenous languages at risk of disappearing l Al Jazeera English

>> In [inaudible]
Palace, the high

temple of Mexican
culture, poet Celerina

Sanchez is reciting
in her native tongue

[FOREIGN] It's part of

the celebrations for

international
mother tongue day.

Here, it's an
especially big deal.

Seven-and-a-half million
Mexicans speak one

of the country's 68
indigenous languages.

But not all is well.

More than half of
them are in danger.

>> If my language dies,

I'll never know how
to name things,

how to see the world
from my point of view.

I wouldn't be
able to do that.

>> The loss of
native languages

hasn't happened
by accident here.

Indigenous people have

historically been
discriminated against,

even punished for speaking

their languages
in schools.

Migration to cities or

the US has also
taken its toll.

Rene says he's now one of

the only young people from

his village in
the tricky region

to still play
the old songs.

>> [MUSIC].

>> Things have to change.

We shouldn't be thinking
that people are

less for speaking an
indigenous language.

I want to tell

the world that
it's actually very

valuable because it locks

in all of our
ancestral knowledge,

music, and medicine,
the things

that we've been losing.

>> Mexicans seem
to be coming

round to that
point of view.

Those taking the Nahuatl
poems handed out by

officials in the Metro are

keen to hang on
to their roots.

>> It's important not
to lose our traditions

and languages because
they're our inheritance.

We've already
almost lost them,

but we should teach

our children to
value what we have.

>> That's spilled into

Mexico's artistic life,

but it hasn't necessarily
got beyond that.

There's increasingly
acceptance and

support for cultural
events like this one.

But linguistics experts

and indigenous leaders say

that it's in
the day-to-day

that things still
need to change.

For example, in hospitals,

even in indigenous areas,

there's often a lack
of interpreters,

so people can't tell

doctors exactly what's
wrong with them.

The same in the judicial
system in which

indigenous people
have been sent down

without really
knowing what's

going on in their trial.

Those are the harder,

less visible changes that

the new government
will have

to also engage with,

if it wants the country

to continue celebrating,

not mourning its
mother tongues.

John Holman, Al
Jazeera, Mexico City.