The United Nations launched a Literacy Decade on 13 February 2003 with the mission of "Education for all" and the mottos "Literacy as freedom" & "Literacy for all: voice for all, learning for all." What does this all really mean in practice for multilingual societies & minority language communities?

The goal of Multilingual_Literacy is to serve as a forum for discussion & exchange of information about literacy theory, practice, & policy in multilingual contexts worldwide during the Decade, & to facilitate consideration of such questions as:

• What approaches to adult literacy & basic education for children work best on the countrywide, community & individual levels?
• Should measures of "literacy" (% literate) be more complex in countries or communities where multiple languages & maybe even scripts are used?
• What other issues arise with various approaches to literacy in countries where many languages are spoken (e.g., language survival, national unity, prioritizing limited education resources, production of materials for post-literacy, role of ICT, meaning of literacy to the people...), & how can they be addressed?
• What about terminology & related concepts? (e.g., multiliteracy, pluriliteracy, multi/bilingualism)

Multilingual_Literacy is not connected with the U.N. It is mirrored on the Linguist list.