International Mother Language Day, 2022

In news- International Mother Language Day is observed worldwide on 21st February every year to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism.

About the day-

The Day is part of a broader initiative to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by people of the world.
The idea to celebrate International Mother Language Day first came from Bangladesh.
The general conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) decided to celebrate February 21 as International Mother Language Day in 2000.
The theme of 2022 is: “Using technology for multilingual learning: Challenges and opportunities”, it focuses on potential role of technology to advance multilingual education and support the development of quality teaching and learning for all.
This year the Day will be celebrated as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
To mark the day, the Ministry of Culture organized a two-day programme in collaboration with Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) and UNESCO New Delhi Cluster Office in physical and virtual format.

Mother tongues in India-

According to census data, more than 19,500 languages or dialects are spoken in India as mother tongue.
There are 121 languages which are spoken by 10,000 or more people in India.
The 121 languages are presented in two parts – languages included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, comprising 22 languages and languages not included in the Eighth Schedule, comprising 99 languages.
The scheduled languages, as mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, are: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri.
Of these languages, 14 were initially included in the Constitution. Sindhi language was added in 1967.
Thereafter three more languages viz., Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were included in 1992.
Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali were added in 2004.