The Guinness world record for multilingual reading aloud (most languages used in a reading relay) was beaten on Sunday at the Bib Sophia library in Schaerbeek. Students and parents from local schools read an excerpt from the book “Mr Reneby children’s author Leo Timmers in 65 different languages, beating the previous world record set at 50 languages by the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar.
The idea of this attempt was initiated by the library, the schools of Schaerbeek and the ASBL Foyer. One of the sentences in the book was read aloud in 75 languages with a pause of up to ten seconds between each. A jury made up of professors and collaborators from the universities of Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels and Louvain-la-Neuve as well as professional translators from the European institutions was asked to judge whether the languages were used correctly. Unfortunately, ten of the languages represented this Sunday could not be validated by the jurors and therefore could not be counted.
“I am from Ghana“, explains one of the participants. “So I took part in this challenge by speaking in Akan, the most widely spoken language in my country of origin. It is a relatively unknown language and I am very happy to make it known today in Schaerbeek.“
The objective behind this challenge is to promote reading aloud to children, regardless of the language spoken: “the idea is to accept that Brussels is a very diverse city with many nationalities represented and languages spoken“, says Sofie Van den Bergh, librarian and organizer.”We want to tell all parents in Schaerbeek that it is important to read aloud in their own language to their children, even if that language is neither French nor Dutch.“