International Mother Language Day
EVERY year, we in Bangladesh observe February 21 as Shahid Dibash, or the “Day of Martyrs,” with deep respect. We remember those who sacrificed their lives on this day in 1952 to establish our right to speak in Bangla, our mother language.
The government of then-pakistan decided that Urdu would be the only state language of the said country. Bengalis, who comprise the majority of the population of Pakistan whose mother tongue is Bangla, protested and demanded that both Urdu and Bangla be the official languages. Students came out in protest in Dhaka on February 21, 1952. Many were killed on the streets when police fired at them.
Eventually Bangla did become the official language of Pakistan, but the sad event fired-up Bengali nationalism. And with time, under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman—our Father of the Nation—bangladesh emerged independent through a nine-month-long liberation war.
As we celebrate his birth centenary and the Golden Jubilee of Bangladesh’s independence this year, February 21 holds more significance in 2021. It was on the said date we realized that the very essence of our culture and identity was at stake. Bangladesh, which means “the country where Bangla is spoken,” perhaps, is the only country in the world known by its language. This reflects our passionate love for our mother tongue, representing our cultural heritage of thousands of years.
For every individual, the mother tongue is crucial to his or her identity. Language is not only a means through which we communicate; it is also a medium that carries our age-old heritage to us from our ancestors. It connects people, time and generations.
A child learns its mother tongue from her mother, family and society. Therefore, it shapes a child into the kind of person he or she would be one day. It is one of the first tools of a child for emotional and cognitive development that builds its personal universe, and connects him or her to the wider world to the actions of understanding, of being understood, and most important, of creativity. These pieces of learning never really fade away, notwithstanding a tiny community speaks the child’s mother tongue.
Like a river, language also has its own course: it adapts, adopts and morphs. It, too, thrives or dies. In this world, every year, many languages become extinct. And with them die the knowledge and the wisdom that they carry: the myths, legends, folklores, emotions, sounds, symbols—the entire evolution. Therefore, we must remember that with the death of every language, we also lose a part of who we are, and what we could offer to the world. That, indeed, is an enormous loss.
‘Mother Language Day’
IN March 1998 a multilingual and multi-ethnic group residing in Canada known as the “Mother Language Lovers of the World” wrote to the United Nations secretary general. It highlighted that many small ethnic groups are forced to use other languages, and eventually are deprived of their mother tongue, forcing the latter to be nearextinct. Members suggested observing
a day globally every year as the “Mother Language Day” and proposed February 21 for the same reason, due to the immense sacrifices made on the said day for the rights of speaking in one’s mother tongue in Bangladesh.
The group included 10 individuals: two of them spoke Bangla (Rafiqul Islam and Abdus Salam); two in English; two, Tagalog/filipino (Albert Vinzon and Carmen Cristobal); an Urdu; a German; a Cantonese; and a Hindi. Bangladesh, as a state, soon adopted and pursued the idea within the framework of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).
Finally, to celebrate the diversity of languages and the concomitant heritage values that they carry, the Unesco General Conference declared February 21 as “International Mother Language Day (IMLD)” on November 17, 1999. The day that we Bangladeshis obser ve as the “Day of Commitment to our Language” thus became a global occasion to celebrate the linguistic diversity and heritages of the world.
According to one estimate, more than 6,000 languages are spoken around the world. Every language has its own organic growth. Some are written, some are not. Many also accompany expressions, gestures or reflections. All these carry certain traits of history and culture of the people speaking in the language— not to mention that each one is endowed with a vast ocean of creative omnibus.
Languages: Irreplaceable heritage
ON IMLD, we celebrate all the languages of the world: all 6,000 of them, and more. We pay our homage to all our mother tongues, equally. We value each one of them with its own traditions, creative wealth, wisdom, sounds, symbols and emotions. They are our common irreplaceable heritage. We do not want them to be extinct. We commit ourselves to spare no efforts to save them, as they reflect the diversity of our humanity, our plurality, and our common inheritance in them.
The Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda envisions quality education for all, enabling everyone to explore and establish his or her potential. Unesco’s Education 2030 Framework for Action—a road map to implement Goal 4—commits complete efforts and attention in the use of mother tongue in learning, teaching and the promotion and protection of global linguistic diversity— including multilingualism.
Today, as we pay our deepest respect to our language martyrs who sacrificed their lives in 1952 for our rights to speak in Bangla, we also join global efforts to save and flourish all the languages around the world.
Let us all cherish our mother tongue. And in doing so, remind ourselves once again that, however diverse we may look—in essence—we are all one.