International Mother Language Day is a day set aside by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to commemorate the sad massacre that occurred among the Bengali speaking people of Dhaka in Indonesia on the 23rd of February 1952.
The objective of International Mother Language Day is the preservation of linguistic diversity, promotion of mother tongue based multilingual education, and prevention of indigenous languages around the world from going into extinction as it has been discovered one language disappears every two weeks, taking with it an entire cultural and intellectual heritage.
The theme of the 2022 International Mother Language Day, “Using technology for multilingual learning: Challenges and opportunities,” raises the potential role of technology to advance multilingual education and support the development of quality teaching and learning for all.
Having strong mother tongue foundation by children leads to a much better understanding of their curriculum as well as a more positive attitude towards schools. Inspiring children to speak more than one language is also another way to encourage unity and development of their cognitive skills as exploring new languages often make them to pick interest in the culture of people whose language they are learning.
Although the day is Normally celebrated in February, Nigeria is setting aside Tuesday 28th of June,2022 to celebrate it.
