International Mother Language Day 2022: What is the day all about?
People all over the world take pride over their mother tongues as these languages not only highlight their unique cultures, but also let them cherish dialects that are both personal and nostalgic. Keeping this in mind, every year on 21st February, the world celebrates International Mother Language Day. This auspicious day has been designated by the United Nations to recognise the power of all languages as well as multilingualism. This, in turn, emphasises on the Sustainable Development Goals that focus on inclusion. Here’s all you need to know about International Mother Language Day.
Theme of International Mother Language Day 2022
The theme of International Mother Language Day for this year as designated by the United Nations is ‘Using technology for multilingual learning: Challenges and opportunities.’ Through this theme, the United Nations aims to enhance the potential role of technology in advancing multilingual education across the globe by supporting the development of world class teaching and learning methods for one and all.
The unprecedented times of COVID-19 has opened our eyes to the fact that technology is vital in the field of education. In fact, according to the United Nations, it is through technology that most of the challenges in the education sector can be addressed. For this reason, this year’s theme stresses on multilingual education and inclusion by prioritising the mother tongues across the borders.
History behind International Mother Language Day
It was on 21st February 1952 that the first-of-its-kind language movement, popularly known in history as ‘Bhasha Andolon’ commenced in Bangladesh (the then East Pakistan). It had eventually transitioned into a long struggle to save the Bengali language and people from the influences of the then West Pakistan. It is believed that this movement that ignited the Liberation War of 1971 (Bangladesh’s War of Independence) that had eventually led to the formation of independent Bangladesh.
In 1999, Bangladesh had made the proposal to establish 21st February as the International Mother Language Day, which was approved by the UNESCO during its 30th General Conference that same year to send a tribute to the country’s long-run battle and sacrifices made for its mother tongue Bengali (‘Bangla), that happens to be the sixth most commonly spoken language in the world today.
Since then, the International Mother Language Day has been widely commemorated worldwide. As a matter of fact, the first official celebrations of International Mother Language Day were observed in 2000 all across the globe.
Significance of International Mother Language Day
UNESCO, one of world’s most powerful intergovernmental bodies recognises International Mother Language Day on the grounds of cultural and linguistic diversity to maintain sustainable societies. In fact, as part of UNESCO’s mandate for peace, it is the foremost responsibility of the organisation to preserve the differences in languages and cultures in order to foster the much-needed tolerance and respect for diversity.
Not only that, linguistic diversity is gradually becoming endangered as among the 6000 languages spoken around the world, almost half are rapidly moving towards extinction. In fact, as per the reports of the United Nations, more than 40 percent of the global population do not have access to education in their mother languages, or languages they speak, read, understand and feel comfortable in. As a result, International Mother Language Day helps in promotion and preservation of all these native languages through design and development of innovative language oriented digital tools. The goal is to encourage individuals from their formative years to stay committed to their own native languages and engage in mother tongue based multilingual education.