UNESCO proclaimed February 21 as the International Mother Language Day (IMLD) in 1999 to celebrate and protect the diverse languages of the world. While IMLD is an effort to honor people’s right to speak their mother tongues, to preserve their culture and identity, and to safeguard the many endangered languages of the world, it is also a tribute to the language martyrs of the Bengali language movement in Bangladesh. Since 2000, IMLD has been celebrated around the world as well as in Lower Mainland, British Columbia. This year IMLD will be celebrated at CISAR with multilingual presentations, performances, and multicultural festivities.
Please join us in this wonderful celebration of our mother languages and multilingualism!