International Mother Tongue Day

A worldwide celebration of multilingualism and respect for cultural diversity, International Mother Language Day, which actually falls on February 21, was formally established by the United Nations in 2003 to honour the dozens of Bengalis who were killed by Pakistani forces in 1952 as they were demonstrating for the right to speak the Bengali (or Bangla) language in the region now known as Bangladesh.


At UWCSEA Dover we are privileged to have children from a wide range of backgrounds that together speak more than 40 languages as their Mother Tongue. Interactive displays, story telling in foreign languages and a Multilingual graffiti wall kept the students entertained. It also gave our students the opportunity to observe fact that every ethnic group has the right to speak their own mother language, at least at home to express their feelings and communicate more closely, but at the same time honour the single common language, which in this country is English. A video displaying UWCSEA’s rich multilingual diversity was made to celebrate International Mother Tongue day.

By: Herman Philip Viljoen