Just before the commencement of 21st century UNESCO General Conference gave the approval to celebrate International Mother Language Day, since then, 21st February has become a day to rejoiced throughout the world.
UNESCO gives prime value to cultural and linguistic diversity for sustainable societies and inspire solidarity based on tolerance, dialogue, and understanding. As language is the most powerful means to communicate between humans and supports to preserve the cultural and linguistic diversity, this special day is celebrated to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity all around the world and promote multilingualism.
The theme of 2019 International Mother Language day is: “Indigenous languages matter for development, peace building and reconciliation”. This article discusses the theme of urgent need to protect the mother languages and the different means adopted to save the endangered mother tongue(s).
Protection for Mother Language(s)
However, in the era of threat to linguistic diversity, many languages are getting extinct, in addition, large number of masses does not get access to an education in a language they speak or understand. There has been an urgent need for protecting all mother languages and language loss in multilingualism societies. As, fading away of mother languages is a question of concern, as this even hampers the unique modes of thinking and expression, tradition and language diversity. Every language has a unique in nature and carries along with its cultural and linguistic value, that need to be preserved and conserved for the future generations.
Moreover, many thousands of languages are endangered as only few a given preference in education system and public life over the others. UNESCO has stated one language disappears on average every two weeks that makes the entire cultural and intellectual heritage a history, “Languages are an irreplaceable tool for sustainability; each and every one conveys a different pattern of thoughts and worldviews. The realisation of sustainable development depends on linguistic diversity and multilingualism and the contribution it makes to global citizenship education as it promotes intercultural encounters and better ways of living together.” (UNESCO) Therefore, International Mother Language day promote linguistic diversity and multilingualism.
Celebrating International Mother Language Day
In order to promote mother languages, Office of the United Nations Ombudsman and Mediation services has invited the favorite proverb in any mother language on themes like “peace, harmony, conflict resolution/competence to deal with conflict, mindfulness, resilience, well-being”. Plethora of activities is performed to celebrate this significant day in order to promote the mother languages and conserving their immense knowledge and cultural practices. Celebration of traditional songs and dance are observed in various platforms. In this regard, varied kind of activities are performed by various educational institutions and other platforms, for instances, making posters, drama performances, quizzes, debate contest, drawing competitions with words, sharing rhythms, songs and stories in native languages and other interesting activities of book releases, concerts, seminars and symposiums in order to enhance the community awareness about mother/heritage languages, fund raising to support native languages, language day walks or cultural programs in different languages are organized. Teachers and educationist played a pivotal role in promoting this day, by conducting various activities in schools and universities. Cultural carnivals, festivals and language oriented programmes are organized and promote a valuable message of safeguarding the traditional languages.
Activities of learning new word or teaching someone a word of endangered languages, texting message, storytelling or essay writing in mother language and learning new phrase, sending audio postcard or exchanging daily use phrases or greetings.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, it has become a responsibility for every human to not just save their mother tongue but also respect and promote other languages. This will help to establish language sustainability and the future generations will get aware of their traditional mother tongue.
Dr Sakul Kundra is an assistant professor in history at FNU while Bhawna Kundra, Head of Language is a French and business management teacher and MYP A co-ordinator at International School Nadi. Views expressed are theirs and not of this newspaper or their respective employers.