International Mother Language Day 2022:Â On February 21, 1952, the students of Dhaka University, Bangladesh, stood their ground to protect the sanctity of their mother language, Bangla. The protest saw a massive inclusion of people who joined hands to safeguard the existence and prevalence of their mother tongue, despite meetings and events being outlawed by the government of then called East Pakistan.
The movement that resulted in five students being martyred is now commemorated in the form of International Mother Language Day by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). February 21, in a way, is a reminder for the masses to not let go of their roots or get swept away by the wave of globalisation.
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As per official reports, out of the 7,000 languages spoken on the globe, India alone has close to 2,000 languages. The number is evidence of the variety that our nation has. It is not far-fetched to say that with every 500 kilometres, one can see a tweak in the culture, ethnicity, and language in India.
A total of 22 languages are constitutionally recognised as mother tongues that have a considerable number of speakers. As per the eighth schedule of the Constitution, these languages are – Bengali, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Assamese, Kannada, Konkani, Kashmiri, Manipuri, Malayalam, Tamil, Telegu, Urdu, Oriya, Nepali, Bodo, Maithili, Santhali, Dogri, Punjabi, Sanskrit, and Hindi.
Among the list of the recognised mother languages, Hindi, Bengali, and Marathi are the top most spoken languages with 528 million, 97.2 million, and 83 million speakers, according to the 2011 census. In addition, India has more than 99 non-scheduled languages that have one lakh or more voices. When it comes to the identifiable mother languages in India, with more than 10,000 speakers, the number stands at 270.
The International Mother Language Day is seeing implementation by UNESCO at the global level. In addition, the United Nations has decided to celebrate the period between 2022 and 2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Language.
