International Mother Language Day and Festival honours Bangladesh’s Mother Language

The Bangladeshi community in Windsor welcomed a presentation of flags from 16 different countries as it celebrated its first language festival on Feb. 23. The festival was preceded by the Bangladeshi flag being hoisted by Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens on Thursday.

The flag hoisting ceremony recognizes International Mother Language Day, approved by the United Nations in 1999.

“This is a gift from Bangladesh to the rest of the world because the language movement started in Bangladesh in 1952 when people sacrificed their lives for their mother language,” said Fazle Baki, vice-president of the Bangladesh Canada Association of Windsor-Essex.

Bangladesh was formed in 1971 after it seceded from Pakistan. After a nine-months long war with Pakistan the new state drafted its constitution in 1972.

The International Mother Language Day and Festival also symbolizes survival of different languages, said Saiful Bhuiyan, president of Bangladesh Canada Association of Windsor-Essex.

“Every two weeks this planet loses one language, it is alarming,” said Bhuiyan. “We have to work for it just to survive our languages in the society and make this society beautiful.”

According to the United Nations,in 8,000 BC humans spoke around 20,000 dialects, but today the number has declined to just 6,500. Seven languages are currently on the brink of extinction. In Canada, at least one in 10 of the First Nations have lost their ability to converse in their mother tongue, according to Statistics Canada.

The language festival was also filled with dance performances and a variety of food and songs. The event had guest speakers such as Mitchel Fields, Dean of Odette School of Business, Claude Saizonou, president of the South Asian Center and African Community Organization, and many more.

“I think the celebration of language is so important. It’s important because Canada is such a multicultural society and I don’t think we should ever forget our roots and our mother languages. Probably everybody in this country spoke a different language at one time or another,” said Fields.

According to Bhuiyan, a monument which they have been fundraising to build in Windsor to promote language and culture will go up this summer across from Caesars Windsor, once the City approves it.