Mother Language Day: February 21st.
2 02 2008There are approx. 7,000 known living languages in the world today and half of them are in the process of becoming extinct!!! Amazing figures indeed.
On March 21, 1948, the Governor General of Pakistan - Mohammed Ali Jinnah declared, that the Urdu language would be the only language for both West and East Pakistan. The peoples of the East Pakistan (whose main language was Bengali) started to protest against this decision.
On February 21, 1952, several students campaigning for the recognition of the Bengali language as one of the state languages of Pakistan were killed (shot) by the government police.
Linguistic and cultural diversity represent universal values that strengthen the unity and cohesion of societies. The recognition of the importance of linguistic diversity led to UNESCO’s decision in 1999, in the 30th session of its General Conference that the Organization would launch and observe an International Mother Language Day on 21 February every year, throughout the world.
This is mostly the international recognition of the Language Movement Day, which has been commemorated in Bangladesh (formerly: East Pakistan) since 1952.
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