Mother Language is a language that is native to the people living in a specific area. The term mother is used for the country one resides in and the language spoken in that country is known as the Mother Language of the people staying in that country. In terms of English the term mother language can be said as the mother tongue. The world is full of people originating from different places speaking different languages altogether. The world is full of people with linguistic difference and cultural differences. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation on 17th November, 1999 decided to celebrate an International Mother Language Day on 21st February every year. This decision from the UNESCO was later recognised by the United Nations General Assembly in the year 2008. The UN made the year as the International year of Languages.
Every Year the world celebrates the International Mother Language day on 21st February from the year 2000. The date selected for the day also has a rich history behind it. The history is dated back in the year 1952. On the day 21st February 1952 students from different educational institutes like Dhaka University, Jagannath University and Dhaka Medical College came out in protest to make the official language of Bangladesh as Bengali. At that time Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan. The request was to make Bengali as the second mother language of the country. The student were shot and killed by the police in Dhaka which is the current capital of Bangladesh. To respect the death of those students for the fight of language this date has been selected as the international mother language day.
On this day all the countries come up with the ideas of preserving their mother tongue. Every year the day is celebrated with various themes. In the year 2013 the theme was Punjabi while in the year 20014 the theme selected for this day was Turkish language day. In India every year the day is celebrated by promoting the mother language of the people living in the country. On this day many cultural shows are organised and various programs are conducted in order to promote Hindi among the youth of the country. There special contests like public speaking and writing for the youths to learn more about their language. India is a country where people speak different languages altogether. Every state of the country try to promote the language of that state along with Hindi. The UNESCO every year selects a theme for the day. This theme is then celebrated in the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris with the related events. The UNESCO also announced the year 2008 as the world language year on the day of International Mother Language day. On this day a linguapax prize is awarded by the linguapax institute to the country who worked well on preserving the linguistics of the country. On this day the main aim is to preserve the linguistics of the world.