Kurdistan's president, PM celebrate the International Mother language day
Shafaq News/ President Nechirvan Barzani on Tuesday celebrated the international mother language day with a call to protect the Kurdish language and dialects in Kurdistan.
"On the international mother language day, we lay emphasis on protecting and promoting the Kurdish language and all the languages and dialects in Kurdistan," he tweeted.
The president extended "greetings to the writers who serve the mother tongue, and those who protect Kurdistan's multilingualism and multiculturalism, and work for coexistence."
"I congratulate all Kurds, ethnic groups, and communities of Kurdistan on the international mother language day. It is the duty of all of us to preserve and develop our mother tongue," Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said in a tweet, "let us use Kurdish more on websites and social media. I will start with myself and tweet more in Kurdish starting from today."
International Mother Language Day is a worldwide annual observance held on 21 February to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism. First announced by UNESCO on 17 November 1999, it was formally recognized by the United Nations General Assembly with the adoption of UN resolution 56/262 in 2002.
Mother Language Day is part of a broader initiative "to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world" as adopted by the UN General Assembly on 16 May 2007 in UN resolution 61/266, which also established 2008 as the International Year of Languages.
The idea to celebrate International Mother Language Day was the initiative of Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, 21 February is the anniversary of the day when the people of Bangladesh (then East Bengal of Pakistan) fought for recognition for the Bengali language.
