International Mother Language Day

Today is international mother language day. At present, the members' countries of UN celebrate 21 February as an International Mother Language day. The 21st of February is of special significance to the people of Bangladesh. Each year, on this date the country commemorates International Mother language Day in recognition of the preservation of Bangla as the official language of Bangladesh. UNESCO declared the 21st of February each year to be International Mother Language Day on a world-wide scale among United Nations member countries. In 1999 the proposal was made to UNESCO to create International Mother Language Day in the belief that a culture of peace can only really flourish where each individual enjoys the right to communicate freely in their mother language in all aspects of their lives.UNESCO supports this conviction, as well as the belief that there should be cultural and linguistic diversity in education and the preservation of languages in danger of dying out. So at the 30th session of the General Conference of UNESCO in 1999 the decision was taken to launch International Mother Language Day throughout the world. After that the day is getting specialty to all over the world. by the by here I highlight the history of this day precisely.

Apparently, 21st of February as International Mother Language Day started when the Governor General of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah,declared at a public meeting on 21 March 1948 that 'Urdu'(Pakistani language) would be the only officiallanguage for both east and west Pakistan. The majority of the people (more 54%) living in eastern Pakistan were Bangla-speaking and therefore protested against this declaration. A student meeting called for a strike on 21 February, a movement held against the Pakistani government and they could not would not tolerate it. Five of the students Salam, Rafiq, Barkat and Jabber were campaigning for Bangla to be recognized as one of the state languages of Pakistan were shot and killed by police on the procession. The slain students are seen as martyrs for their cause, which turned out to be the beginning of Bangladesh’s struggle for independence.

Bangladesh is the only country which peoples agitated to get right of their mother tongue and the Brave Bangalee dedicated their live for their language. So we promise that we love and preserve our own mother tongue as well as we do not hate other languages because all languages have a unique formation and mood of expression.