Celebrating Mankind's Unique Gift: Language

Roughly 6,500 languages are spoken all across the globe. This means that are 6,500 different styles to say the same thing. This diversity is unique to humankind and is celebrated every year on 21 February, recognising the unbroken chain from the first-word ever spoken to this word.

6500 languages are spoken across the globe; Source: Public Domain

A child when born slowly ingrains the world around him/her through his senses. He sees, hears, feels, smells and tastes. He experiences stuff and then puts it back into the world through his words. From "ma" to the theories he devises to understand complex stuff around him, it is a journey that is practically impossible without a language!

Think about people who lived thousands of years before you - it is possible to understand and interpret the things they thought and said because of the language they used to articulate it. How would have been life without words? For all we know, I wouldn't have been writing this and you wouldn't have been reading it.

All around the globe, thousands of languages are spoken, some by a lot of people and some by only a handful few. Some have been forgotten and some rediscovered but not understood. All these languages are the most essential part of human communication. The journey from one brain to another would be impossible without the millions of words that come out of a mouth and fall on another's ear.

As part of the Digital India Initiative, digitised content has been made available in more than 200 recognised and scheduled languages in India.

On 21 February 1952, a few Bengali students in Bangladesh were campaigning to use Bengali officially as their mother language. Since the populace was mostly Bengali speaking, the demands were justified. However, when the protests of the Bengali Language Movement were at their peak, the police opened fire on the demonstrators, killing four students. The struggle continued and four years later Bengali earned the title of official language.

Fifty-seven years later from that day, UNESCO declared 21 February to be International Mother Language Day. This was done to promote, preserve and protect all the languages used by all the people in the world. The day celebrates multilingualism and cultural-linguistic diversity.

The word 'Mother' has been used with the idea that a child learns his/her first language from his/her mother.

Today, we understand the vital role that language plays in our lives - in development, diversity, culture, intercultural dialogues, learning, passing of knowledge, political understandings and even in most basic things like expressing love, sadness and hunger. Language makes our life easier and more beautiful. It gives the feeling of being alive and the strength of togetherness in the most difficult of times.

So, for the beauty that language is and for all that we ignore in the daily bustle of life, let's raise the glass high and celebrate the most graceful medium of communication - Happy International Mother Language Day!