International Mother Language Day 21 February 2012

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Large or small, Indo-European or Inuit, endangered or killer, let’s celebrate our mother tongues on UNESCO‘s International Mother Language Day!

We don’t all die for language rights, like the Bangla-speaking students of the University of Dhaka who were killed on 21 February 1952, protesting the then Government of Pakistan’s decision to promote Urdu as the sole national language. But we CAN support this year’s theme which is yes! “Mother tongue instruction and inclusive education”.

UNESO IMLD 2012 poster

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4 thoughts on “International Mother Language Day 21 February 2012”

  3. I’m very pleased to announce that on International Mother Language Day this year, the principal of the local indigenous school that I’m dealing with, an independent school that, until 2010, had a very successful bilingual education program, met with the organisation that administers the school and told them how much they wanted bilingual education brought back. The result was the organisation agreeing to do what they could to help the school, meaning that two-way eduction may return here in 2013!

    Of course by then there’ll have been three years of kids to have gone through without having been taught any literacy in their first language.

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