2012 International Mother Language Day: Feb 21

February 21, 2012: International Mother Language Day is celebrated on Tuesday. It was proclaimed by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in November 1999.
International Mother Language Day has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.
UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, in her message on the occasion said that ‘Multilingualism is our ally in ensuring quality education for all, in promoting inclusion and in combating discrimination. Building genuine dialogue is premised on respect for languages. Languages are who we are; by protecting them, we protect ourselves.
UNESCO has celebrated International Mother Language Day for 12 years now and directs its energies towards protecting linguistic diversity. This thirteenth celebration is dedicated to multilingualism for inclusive education, she added.
Linguistic diversity is our common heritage. Nearly half of the more than 6,000 languages spoken in the world could die out by the end of the century.
The date, February 21, represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh.
On 16 May 2009 the United Nations General Assembly called upon Member States "to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world". The General Assembly proclaimed 2008 as the International Year of Languages, to promote unity in diversity and international understanding, through multilingualism and multiculturalism.
‘Use of the mother tongue at school is a powerful remedy against illiteracy. Excluded population groups, such as indigenous peoples, are often those whose mother tongues are ignored by education systems. Allowing them to learn from a very early age in their mother tongue, and then in national, official or other languages, promotes equality and social inclusion’, said the Director General.