International Mother Language Day 2023: Mother tongue is the medium of cultural and emotional unity

World Mother Language Day is celebrated every year on 21 February by UNESCO to promote mother tongue by developing full awareness of the cultural traditions of the language around the world, inspiring solidarity based on its understanding and dialogue. The purpose of celebrating this day is to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism in the world. The declaration of International Mother Language Day by UNESCO has given international acceptance to the Language Movement Day of Bangladesh, which has been celebrated in Bangladesh since 1952. This day is a national holiday in Bangladesh. Declaring 2008 as the International Year of Languages, the United Nations General Assembly reiterated the importance of International Mother Language Day. The theme for International Mother Language Day 2023 is “Multilingual education and the need to transform education”.

Mother tongue is such a language that it does not require any class to learn it. The first language a human learns after birth is called his mother tongue, that is the social and linguistic identity of the person. But many times in the human society, along with the violation of human rights, the use of mother tongue has also been told wrong. A similar situation had arisen in Bangladesh on 21 February 1952 when Pakistan declared Urdu as the national language in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) after the partition of India in 1947. But the area was dominated by Bangla and Bengali speakers, and in 1952, when other languages ​​were outlawed in East Pakistan, the students of Dhaka University launched a movement. To stop the movement, the police started firing on the students and protesters, in which many students died. Matribhasha Diwas is celebrated in the memory of the martyrs who died fighting for the rights of their mother tongue.

The Narendra Modi government is trying to promote mother tongues in India. He has also accepted multilingualism at the level of higher education in the National Education Policy 2020. There are many misconceptions about mother tongues in our country, in which there is a misconception that English is the language of development and knowledge. While research by many institutions, including UNESCO, has proved that only through education in one’s own language, a child can develop in a true and all-round way. From this point of view, education in mother tongue is completely scientific. This opinion has also been accepted by the National Brain Research Center of India and all the commissions related to education etc. According to the experience of Indian scientist C. V. Srinath Shastri, students educated through Indian languages ​​do better scientific research than those who get engineering education through English medium. Mahatma Gandhi had said, “Foreign medium has burdened the nerves of the children, made them rattu, they are not fit for creation. Foreign language has obstructed the development of native languages.” In this context, it is necessary to mention the words of former President of India and scientist Dr. Abdul Kalam that “I became a good scientist because I learned mathematics and science. Received in mother tongue.

India can realize its dream of becoming a super power only by promoting the mother tongue. Towards achieving this noble objective, education in the mother tongue has to be given priority, along with intensifying the drive for innovation and research in science, technology and academic fields. When mother tongue becomes the medium of education, originality will launch a campaign of creativity in the society. Giving priority to language and mathematics in the new policy will inculcate writing skills and innovation among children. Will create an environment of creative activities. Mother tongue is the main means of establishing cultural and emotional unity in the whole country. India’s mature democracy, ancient civilization, rich culture and unique constitution hold a high place in the world, similarly it must be our priority to develop mother languages ​​which are symbols of India’s dignity and pride at all costs.

Today there are many such languages ​​and dialects in the world whose protection is necessary. The concern of the vernacular languages ​​is necessary because they are a part of our heritage and our heritage and whatever beautiful and noble things are being created in them should be preserved. According to UNESCO, language is not just a medium of communication, education or development, but a unique identity of a person, a treasure of his culture, tradition and history. For any nation or society, its mother tongue is like its identity. If we talk about India, we will see dialects changing at every step. Hindi is definitely our national language but along with it every region has its own languages ​​which need to be encouraged. According to the People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) study of 3000 experts from 85 institutions and universities, 250 languages ​​of the country with 780 different dialects have disappeared during the last 50 years. Of these, 22 are scheduled languages.

According to population statistics there are 122 languages ​​spoken by more than 10 thousand people. The rest is spoken by less than 10,000 people. The first linguistic survey was conducted between 1898–1928 after the Irish linguistic scholar George Abraham Grierson. This first survey done for the first time in independent India took four years. According to this report, Arunachal Pradesh is the richest state in India in terms of linguistic diversity, more than 90 languages ​​are spoken there. It is followed by Maharashtra and Gujarat, where more than 50 languages ​​are spoken. Odisha is at the fourth position with 47 languages. On the contrary, only three languages ​​are spoken in Goa, while Dadra and Nagar Haveli have one language ‘Gorpa’, which has no records so far. More than 400 languages ​​are spoken by tribal and nomadic and non-notified tribes. If the number of Hindi speaking people in India is about 40 crores, then the number of Majhi speaking people in Sikkim is only 4. The existence of about 130 languages ​​spoken in the five states of the North East is in danger. Assam’s 55, Meghalaya’s 31, Manipur’s 28, Nagaland’s 17 and Tripura’s 10 languages ​​are in danger. Recently, ‘Bo’, a tribal language spoken for thousands of years in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India, became extinct forever. In fact, with the death of 85-year-old Boa Sr., the last member of the Bo clan living in Andaman some time ago, the ‘Bo’ language spoken by this tribal community also disappeared.

Education in mother tongue has the most important role for strong India-building and effective education. Because conducting education according to our society and nation and teaching in our own languages ​​will open up new horizons of knowledge, new dimensions of innovation will emerge. Thinking and teaching in mother tongue will reveal the directions of creative and self-identity. In fact, self-languages ​​become the medium of clarity of thoughts, ideologies, imaginations and their broad socio-national philosophy. That is why a unique initiative is being taken to establish mother tongue in the new National Education Policy. Due to this, conditions are being created to encourage mother tongue and regional languages ​​in the country and to provide higher education in these languages. A similar decision has been taken by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for its affiliated engineering colleges for the academic session 2021-22, under which permission is being given to run courses in regional languages. In November 2020, the Ministry of Education had approved a proposal allowing colleges to offer engineering education in the mother tongue.

– Lalit Garg