Maria Corazon Cabrera and her daughter, Janine Cabrera Mendoza, participated in the multilingual reading aloud relay at the Bib Sophia library in Schaerbeek, Brussels on Sunday, 26 February 2023 that broke the Guinness World Record for Multilingual Reading.

Children and parents from schools in the community set a new record for “most languages used in a reading relay” of 65 languages, eclipsing the previous record of 55 languages held by the Museum of Islamic Culture in Qatar. One sentence from ‘Mister René’, a book about the Belgian painter Rene Magritte written by Leo Timmers, was read aloud in Akkadian, Urdu and Swahili to Lingala, Welsh, Hebrew, Filipino, and 58 other languages with a maximum of ten seconds of waiting time between the languages.

Another Filipina, Ms. Maria Alicia Reyes Amarga, attested to the correctness of the Filipino translation read by Ms. Cabrera and her daughter, Janine.

A jury of experts, consisting of professors and staff from the universities of Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, and Louvain-la-Neuve, and professional translators from the European institutions, judged whether the language used while reading was correct to make sure the world record could be official.

Schaerbeek’s councillor for Dutch-language Culture and Education Adelheid Byttebier said of the record breaking event, “We especially wanted to positively highlight the wealth of languages that our municipality has, and stress that children should be proud of their home language.”

For her part, Ms. Cabrera told the Philippine Embassy in Brussels that it was an honor for her and her daughter Janine to have been part of the record-breaking event and that they were proud that the Filipino language is recognized as an important part of the language diversity in Schaerbeek. “We share this achievement with all Filipinos. We should be proud of our language and culture,” Ms. Cabrera added.

Photo source: Maria Corazon Cabrera