Ahmedabad/Hyderabad: Nelson Mandela once said, if you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. This is in essence of the celebration and observation of the International Mother Language Day.
The mother tongue day is observed to promote multilingualism and to create awareness about cultural and linguistic diversity. Annually, it is observed on Feb. 21 worldwide. This day has been observed throughout the world since 2000, in order to preserve and protect all languages used by people across the world.
According to the UNESCO website, it was an initiative undertaken by Bangladesh to celebrate International Mother Language Day. There are more than 7,000 languages spoken worldwide, with half of them close to extinction. To preserve such languages, this day was established.
Mahatma Gandhi in Harijan said: "I must cling to my mother tongue as to my mother's breast, in spite of its shortcomings. It alone can give me the life-giving milk." He insisted that the mother tongue serves as the primary educational medium for children. It helps to understand the concepts in depth.
According to UNESCO, the 24th edition of International Mother Language Day (2023) will focus on the theme, multilingual education- a necessity to transform education. This day seeks to promote the long-term development goals of equality for all. Multilingual education based on the mother tongue facilitates access to and inclusion in learning for population groups that speak non-dominant languages, languages of minority groups, and indigenous languages.
The purpose of the event being organised by UNESCO is to enhance multilingual education as a necessity to transform education in multilingual contexts from early childhood education and well beyond and to support learning through multilingual education and multilingualism in our fast-changing global contexts and in crisis situations including emergencies context and revitalizing languages that are disappearing or are threatened with extinction.
