International Mother Language Day

The General Conference of UNESCO proclaimed International Mother Language Day, on November 17, 1999. It is celebrated every year since February 21, 2000 in order to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. In turn, the UN General Assembly in its resolution declared 2008 the International Year of Languages . The year of 2010 was proclaimed the International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures. Languages ​​are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing of our tangible and intangible heritage. UNESCO estimates that half of the approximately 6000 languages ​​in the world may soon lose their last native speakers. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother languages will serve not only to encourage the linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue. On February 21, 2003 on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura said: "Why we focused so much on the mother language? Because languages ​​are a unique expression of human creativity in all its diversity. As a tool of communication, perception and reflection, the language also describes how we see the world and reflects the relationship between the past, present and future. The Languages ​​bear the traces of random encounters, a variety of sources from which they are filled, each according to its own individual history. Native languages ​​are unique in the sense of what they applied to each person from the moment of birth, giving it a distinctive vision of things that never really disappear, despite the fact that later the human can master many other languages. Learning a foreign language is a way to get acquainted with another vision of the world, with other approaches".