Congratulations on International Mother Language Day! -By Funmilayo Adesanya–Davies

Let’s continue to promote the preservation and protection of all languages —Adesanya-Davies

Congratulations, especially as a linguist, and the Country President of United Nations – Positive Livelihood Award Centre (UN-POLAC),  Amb. Prof. Funmilayo Adesanya-Davies congratulates and wishes us all well today 21, February 2022 on the celebration of the “International Mother Language Day,

“May I say congratulations and best wishes to us all accordingly, as Linguists and to all members of UN-POLAC International Peace Advocates, worldwide, as we always advance the cause of UN millennium goals toward sustainable development.”

The International Mother Language Day is a worldwide annual observance held on 21 February to promote awareness of Linguistic diversity and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism. First announced by UNESCO on 17 November 1999. It was formally recognized by the United Nations General Assembly with the adoption of UN resolution in 2002. Mother Language Day is part of a broader initiative “to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world” as adopted by the UN General Assembly on 16 May 2007 in UN resolution 61/266 which also established 2008 as the International Year of Languages.

The idea is to celebrate International Mother Language Day which was the initiative of Bangladesh. It was approved at the 1999 UNESCO General Conference and has been observed throughout the world since 2000. UNESCO believes in the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity for sustainable societies. It is within its mandate for peace that it works to preserve the differences in cultures and languages that foster tolerance and respect for others.

Linguistic diversity (link is external) is increasingly threatened as more and more languages disappear. Globally 40 per cent of the population does not have access to an education in a language they speak or understand. Nevertheless, progress is being made in mother tongue-based multilingual education with growing understanding of its importance, particularly in early schooling, and more commitment to its development in public life.

What is a mother language? Your ‘mother language’, or ‘mother tongue’, is the language you spoke from earliest childhood. For most people, this is just one language but children in multilingual families may learn two simultaneously. It can also result in other languages becoming endangered and ultimately extinct. Multilingual and multicultural societies exist through their languages which transmit and preserve traditional knowledge and cultures in a sustainable way.

Notably, there are about 6500 languages in the world, but did you know that a language disappears and dies every two weeks?Multilingual education based on the increased use of one’s mother tongue is a major component of inclusion in education. To underline the importance of the mother tongue in laying the foundation for one’s intellectual development.

Thus, the theme of the 2022 International Mother Language Day is, “Using technology for multilingual learning: Challenges and opportunities”. The potential role of technology in order to advance multilingual education and support the development of quality teaching and learning for all cannot be over emphasised.

According to the Director General, “Technology can provide new tools for protecting linguistic diversity. Such tools, for example, facilitating their spread and analysis, allow us to record and preserve languages which sometimes exist only in oral form. Put simply, they make local dialects a shared heritage. However, because the Internet poses a risk of linguistic uniformization, we must also be aware that technological progress will serve plurilingualism only as long as we make the effort to ensure that it does”.
— Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of International Mother Language Day.

Today, as UNESCO organizes a webinar on 21 February from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, Paris time) to celebrate Mother Language Day 2022, I say a very BIG Congratulations again and again to all lovers of Mother Language or Mother Tongue, my colleagues the LINGUISTS and UN-POLAC International Peace Advocates, nationwide as well as all over the world.

May we be challenged as I remind us all today that we continue to appropriate all forms of initiatives “to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world.”

Amb. Prof. Funmilayo Adesanya-Davies
Country President of United Nations – Positive Livelihood Award Centre (UN-POLAC).