International Mother Language Day

There are approximately 7,098 languages spoken in the world today.The most widely used language is English. However, Mandarin is more commonly used as a mother tongue.As the mother tongue, Bengali ranks fifth in the world language list.And its position as the seventh language used.

History of International Mother Tongue

The celebration of International Mother Language Day has a painful history.Pakistan became independent on 14 August 1947. The two parts of Pakistan were East Pakistan and West Pakistan.Since independence, the Pakistani ruling class has declared their language as their only mother tongue.This was not accepted by the people of East Pakistan. Because Bengali was the spoken language of most of the people of East Pakistan. And most of the people of Pakistan spoke Bengali. This was followed by a protest against the language.The Pakistani ruling class took a hard line against the language activists.As of 1952, the majority of citizens of Pakistan were Bengalis, accounting for about 54% of the total population. On 21 February that year, Bengali students became vocal against the government in protest of the declaration of Urdu as the only national language. They started gathering at the Dhaka University premises at 9 am in violation of Section 144. Section 144 on demonstrators indiscriminately fired for violating the police language.
Many students including Salam, Rafiq, Barkat, Jabbar and Shafiur were killed in the police firing. In the Constituent Assembly on 7 May 1954, with the support of the Muslim League, Bengali officially became the state language. On 29 February 1956, Bengali was recognized as the second national language of Pakistan and Article 214 (1) of the Constitution was rewritten thus "Urdu and Bengali will be the state languages of Pakistan".An official and symbolic sculpture, the Shaheed Minar, has been erected at the site of the massacre to commemorate the movement. The day is celebrated as Shaheed Day in Bangladesh and later in West Bengal, India. This day has been declared a public holiday in Bangladesh.UNESCO has decided to observe 21st February as the International Mother Language Day. The General Assembly of UNESCO on 17 November 1999 unanimously adopted the draft proposal submitted by Bangladesh and with the support of 26 other countries.Since 2000, all UN countries have observed February 21 as International Mother Language Day.