Language of persecuted Rohingya may be digitized

The Rohingya — an oppressed Muslim minority group in Myanmar — might soon be able to use their language in emails, texts and on social media.

The Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit in charge of Unicode, the international standard for characters and numbers on computers, is reportedly considering adding the Rohingya language to its list of included languages, according to AFP.

If approved, the move could give a much-needed boost to the Rohingya people, who did not have a written language until the 1980s.

{mosads}The Rohingya have faced violence at the hands of Myanmar’s majority and the government. Last month, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared the violence “ethnic cleansing” and warned Myanmar of new sanctions.

Myanmar’s government does not recognize the Rohingya as one of the country’s ethnic groups, treating them as outsiders.

Experts believe bringing the Rohingya language to computers could help give the oppressed group a symbolic victory and some day more recognition.

“If a people do not have a written language of their own, it is easier to say that as an ethnic group you don’t exist,” Mohammad Hanif, who developed the writing system for the Rohingya language in the 1980s, told AFP.

“It is easier to repress them,” he added.

“This is a big moment for the Rohingya community,” Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organization in the United Kingdom, told Quartz. “The government has denied our existence for many decades.”