The idea behind celebrating International Mother Language Day came from the Bangladesh initiative and was approved by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation’s General Conference in 1999.
It has been celebrated for the last 24 years from the year 2000. UNESCO trusts the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity for better and sustainable societies. It is the work of the organization to preserve cultural differences and languages for its mandate for peace to foster tolerance and respect for another.
Multicultural and multilingual societies have a way to co-exist harmoniously through respect for others. They exist through the language which preserves the ancient and traditional knowledge and cultures sustainably. Language can work as a form of uniting people as well as can be used as a weapon in dividing them which is evident in history by the multiple colonizers who attacked language first and foremost to ensure their control over one another for a long time.
Linguistic diversity these days is being threatened increasingly as languages are disappearing more and more through time. Around the globe, 40% of the population still does not have access to education in the language they are familiar with which proves to be a big drawback. Still, there is progress being made in the multilingual education system with an increasing understanding of its importance especially in schooling, and needs more commitment to its development for its growth in public life.
Celebrating International Mother Language Day this year
The theme for this year’s International Mother Language Day is “Multilingual education is a pillar of intergenerational learning.” Currently, 250 million children and young adults do not attend school still throughout the world and 763 million adults do not have a command over the most basic of literacy skills.
It is important to focus on the education of the mother language as it can support learning, literacy, as well as the acquisition of additional languages. Apart from scientific studies which are clear and give rationality to the mind, learning one’s mother tongue is also necessary from a young age to boost one’s self-esteem, raise curiosity, and give a way to communicate scientific and other ideas to others in a way everyone around the individual will understand. It provides a promotion of linguistic pluralism and preservation, especially with languages that have only a few of the remaining speakers.
Significance of the International Mother Language Day
Everyone communicates in a native language that they know and have heard from their childhood. With globalization and the advent of social media, the mother languages and people’s respect towards them have changed. While everyone runs after learning one language that is in trend, it is important for sustainability and connection to know your roots and background which is possible only through one’s mother language.
