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Happy International Mother Language Day!

Little girl at Shreeshitalacom Lower Secondary School in Kaski, Nepal leads class in pronunciation of alphabet.
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Saturday, February 21, 2015 is the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s International Mother Language Day Celebration. A special event will be held this year in Paris, France, including opening ceremony speeches and debates and the theme for this year's celebration is "Inclusion In and Through Education: Language Counts."

From the event's webpage:
As the EFA Goals are far from attained due, in part, to the difficulties of reaching the worst-off segments of the population, the debate around language and education becomes more central. Linguistic minorities are often among the most marginalized populations, with little or poor access to quality education. When they do have access to education, learners from these communities are often either excluded from opportunities to pursue their educational career beyond primary or pushed out of education because the language of instruction is not their own.
UNESCO's Mother Language Day has been observed on February 21 since 2000 and was created with the intention "to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world." The date is in honor of the 1952 deaths of student demonstrators fighting for Bangla to be recognized as one of the two national languages of (then) Pakistan in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh.

More information can be found on UNESCO's Mother Language Day page.
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  1. AnonymousFebruary 20, 2015 at 12:14 PM

    Happy Mother Tangue Day to all immigrants and displaced people around the world!
    Gëzuar Ditën e Gjuhës së Mëmës gjithë shqiptarëve nëpër botë!

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