International Mother Language Day

February 21 is the International Mother Language Day, first announced by UNESCO on November 17, 1999. The purpose of the day is to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity, as well as multilingualism. International Mother Language Day was formally recognized by the United Nations in 2002 as part of the project to promote the preservation and protection of the world's languages.

History

The initiative to propose this international day came from Bangladesh. The date, February 21, was specifically chosen because it is the anniversary of the Bangladeshi people's struggle for the recognition of their language. After the separation of British India in 1947, India, Kashmir — still disputed territory — West Pakistan — today’s Pakistan — and East Pakistan — today Bangladesh — were created. The two parts of Pakistan were very different from each other in both culture and language, not to mention that they were at the two extremes of India, thus separated from each other. A year later the Government of Pakistan declared Urdu as the only national language. The people of East Pakistan actively protested, since in those areas Bengali was the language spoken by most of the population. Thus, the Bengali language political movement was born, which aimed to have Bengali recognized as an official language. The Pakistani government, in order to end the protests, opened fire on the demonstrators on February 21, 1952, killing several people and injuring as many. This day is remembered with special attention because it represents an episode of sacrifice for the recognition of their mother tongue.

The origin of Mother Language Day is especially inspired by the proclamation of National Language Movement Day in 1955. A national monument, the Shaheed Minar, was created in 1952 to commemorate the event. Subsequently, the Bengali government sent the request to UNESCO for the extension of the day to an international level; this was done on November 17, 1999 at the 30th General Assembly. Following the officialization of the international day, the Minar was reconstructed, with commemorations still occurring today.

The logo that I am proposing shows the fusion of two important logos: the official one of the international day representing a dove — the symbol of peace — with the words peace in the languages of the world, and the stylized figure of the symbol of this day — the Shaheed Minar.

Why an international day?

The decision to establish an international day covers several points. First, the recognition of languages and multilingualism helps inclusion, a key point for the Sustainable Development Goals. Next, UNESCO set itself the goal of encouraging the preservation of mother tongues and multilingualism, especially in school settings. In this regard, it has proposed a teaching mode whereby education begins with the mother tongue and then gradually goes on to include other foreign languages. The goal is to lead the students to the stable mastery of several languages. Another highlighted goal is to lead children to practice more languages than their parents do, so as to progress generation by generation, by preserving as many idioms as possible and spurring children on from an early age.

UNESCO reports that as many as 40% of the population does not have access to education in a language they speak or understand, which is why the importance of establishing multilingual education venues to ensure higher literacy and education rates has been raised. The main problem comes from indigenous peoples, who do not have access to education in their own languages and, for this reason, are considered the most at risk of their language extinction.

Our school offers several foreign language courses, and I believe that it is essential to reflect on the importance and privilege we have. Although the languages we study are not at risk of extinction, they are in any case important for the development of international cooperation. In the future, I hope to be of help to the international community in development and cooperation. Finally, we must not forget the importance of dialects; in our country in particular, the presence of dialects is very strong and, I believe, these are fundamental to carry forward culture and tradition.

This year’s focus

Since its establishment in 1999, there has been a different theme for Mother Language Day every year. In 2023, an event has been organized with the theme of multilingual education. The themes that will be addressed will pertain to: advancing education in multilingualism from early childhood; supporting multilingual education to cope with global, international and evolving contexts and to cope with cases of crisis and rapid emergencies; and revitalizing endangered or endangered languages. In this regard, I would like to comment by proposing a focus on the importance of each language, whether widespread or not, and help international collaboration through mastery of them.

I. Piacentini