Mother language and its relevance

High Commissioner of Bangladesh to Sri Lanka Tareq Md Ariful Islam addresses the 2024 Mother Language Day event 

• Mother Language Day was celebrated on 21 February across the world

The language that nurtures us is the mother. It can be any language that weaves around us a web of 

protection as the earth our mother does akin to our biological or adopted mother. And whatever the category, a mother represents love.

As a tribute to this timeless quality that shapes all cultures of the world, we feature a brief interview with Tareq Md Ariful Islam, the current High Commissioner of Bangladesh to Sri Lanka who explains the significance of the 2024 Mother Language Day and its celebrations held in Colombo.

Below are excerpts of the interview.

Q: What is the difference of activities in celebrating Mother Language Day this year when compared to other years?

A: The International Mother Language Day is celebrated worldwide on 21 February of each year. We started this celebration in Colombo on a grand scale from 2015. Held at different venues, it took different forms and formats from year to year. In the last five years, this is the fourth time we celebrated the day at the historic Independence Square in Colombo (we could not celebrate the day publicly due to COVID in 2021). 

Despite the year-on-year differences, there are also some common elements, the main of which is children’s participation. With the collaboration of the Ministry of Education, we rolled out two-three months prior to the day, an island-wide art and creative writing competition for children on different themes of promoting mother languages, cultural and linguistic diversity. On this day, we award the winners. We also have multilingual and multi-cultural performance with the participation of different diplomatic missions, their cultural centres and renowned educational institutes of Sri Lanka. Besides, we sponsor a blood donation camp in cooperation with Sri Lanka Scouts and KDU Hospital. We also join and support any other entity/organisation that holds programs on the International Mother Language Day.

Every year, we add new elements. For instance, this year, we had cultural troupes from the University of Colombo, University of Visual and Performing Arts, and Royal College for the first time. While all the time we include cultural performances in the major languages of the world, we particularly try to showcase lesser known and little-used languages. This year, we added two elements which hold significance from Sri Lanka’s perspective—one was a performance in Pali language (by one venerable monk) and the other one was in Vedda language. This year the languages in which the performances were made stood at nine (Bangla, Sinhala, Tamil, Pali, Vedda, Russian, Japanese, Hindi and Dhivehi), our highest ever. Each year, we are adding new languages. 

This year, the Overseas International School invited me, and I gave a brief talk on the significance of the Day to the schoolchildren during their assembly. This year we also joined the University of Colombo, University of Peradeniya, University of Ruhuna and University of Sri Jayewardenepura at an academic conference on International Mother Language Day and spoke as the Guest of Honour highlighting the significance of the Day. The Official Languages Commission took part in our celebration this time. This year, some schools have joined the celebration along with their student representatives. These are the new activities, and they are very befitting for the celebration of International Mother Language Day.

To get back to your original question, if you ask me to identify the differences in comparison to other years, I will rather say it is not the difference rather some improvements added on every year in terms of participation and dimension. The themes for instance. Every year, we pick up a theme: Language for peace, harmony, stability and prosperity of all (in 2017); Language for Unity (2018); Celebrate Languages (2019); Language for Friendship (2021); Mother-Mother Language-Motherland (2022), Mother Language: Unity in Diversity (2023) and this year “Celebrating Mother Languages”. One may observe a certain progression in the themes.

Q: How would you describe the cultural diplomacy-based significance between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka through the commemoration of this day in Colombo?

A: Thanks for your question. In fact, it is a very good and important one.  In this year’s cultural program, there were a few songs and performances in the languages of our region—Bangla, Sinhala, Tamil, Hindi, and Dhivehi. If you carefully follow those different linguistic performances, you would find a subtle similarity in the tone, rhythm and in essence.

Why is it? It is only because we share the similar cultural heritage, values, faiths, clothes, food habits and anthropologically speaking, perhaps, the same forefathers. Therefore, it is very important to identify our convergence rather than divergence. And cultural diplomacy, perhaps, gives us the only platform where we can assimilate ourselves at ease. And when it comes to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, giving our striking similarities, it is a very strong case of cultural diplomacy.

 

Q:How many children took part in the competition this year?

A: As I have already mentioned, it was an island-wide competition conducted by the Ministry of Education which started three months earlier. The Ministry of Education notified the schools; each school administered the competition first, then they forwarded their winners list to the district level; the district level winners were then recommended to the Ministry. The Ministry has a dedicated jury panel who adjudicated the final winners in each age-group category of art and creative writing.

Due to this multilayered screening process, giving you the exact number of participants of the competition is hard. I am sure the Education Ministry might have some data on this. But just to give you an idea: along with 9 winners in three categories, we have issued certificates of appreciation also to the top performing 150 participants selected by the Education Ministry and their district offices.

From this you may be able to understand that the number of children taking part in this competition would have run into several hundreds, if not thousands, around the island.

To give you another perspective, we have winners from Badulla, Mawanella, Galle, and as far as from Jaffna. Only two winners among nine are from Colombo. So, you can understand the expansiveness of the competition.