International Mother Language Day is an observance held annually on 21 February worldwide to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. It was first announced by UNESCO on 17 November 1999. Its observance was also formally recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution establishing 2008 as the International Year of Languages.
International Mother Language Day originated as the international recognition of Language Movement Day, which has been commemorated in Bangladesh since 1952, when a number of students including the students of the University of Dhaka and Dhaka Medical College were killed by the Pakistani police in Dhaka during the Bengali Language Movement protests.
Read more about International Mother Language Day: History, Annual Themes, International Observances
Famous quotes containing the words mother, language and/or day:
“Do you think your mother and I should have lived comfortably so long together, if ever we had been married? Baggage!”
—John Gay (1685–1732)
“You can’t write about people out of textbooks, and you can’t use jargon. You have to speak clearly and simply and purely in a language that a six-year-old child can understand; and yet have the meanings and the overtones of language, and the implications, that appeal to the highest intelligence.”
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)
“The day of small nations has long passed away. The day of Empires has come.”
—Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914)