By Ndlovu Lerato
Every two weeks languages disappear from the generation taking with it the entire culture and heritage that guides tribes and preserving its history, forgetting that they stand as the lens through which the world understood each other and identified each other.
Today the world celebrates the importance of the significance of having a native language for a group of people. This is despite of the change in lifestyle and the creation of one global village.
Home will always be regarded as the best. This year the day was celebrated under the theme “fostering multilingualism for inclusion in education and society,” as a way of encouraging multilingualism and the use of mother languages at school and everyday life and to advance inclusion and the SDG that focuses on leaving no one behind.
UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay said the theme is essential for the world inhabitants have a percentage that did not get education in the language that they speak or understand hence hindering them from accessing heritage and culture expressions.
“The theme of the day is essential because 40% of the worlds inhabitants do not have access to education in the language they speak or understand best, it hinders their learning as well as their access to heritage and cultural expressions.
“This year special attention is being paid to multilingual education from early childhood, so that for children their mother tongue is always an asset.”
She went on to state that the pandemic is hindering a number of students worldwide from attending school hence threatening cultural diversity and limiting festivals and other events from being held resulting in the media and creators being affected.
“For when a language dies, a way of seeing, feeling and thinking the world disappears diminishing all of cultural diversity,” She said.
“On this day UNESCO therefore calls for the celebration of the world in all its diversity for multilingualism in everyday life.”
In Zimbabwe the National Arts Council will be commemorating this day on the 23rd as the day clashes with a national youth celebration.
The day has been celebrated internationally since 2007 as a way of making people fight for the recognition of their local languages.
