Happy International Mother Language Day!

Here in Cameroon, International Mother Language Day was celebrated today (February 26), though the official day was February 21st. That is the date in 1952 when four students in Bangladesh were killed by police as they demonstrated for the recognition of their mother tongue Bangla.

Now unless you were raised by wolves, you have a mother tongue - one of 7,105 living languages according to the Ethnologue. If you don't speak one of the language listed in the Ethnologue, then let me know and I'll get yours added . :-)

If you speak English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese or any of the other major languages, you might wonder what there is to celebrate, much less die for as these Bangla men did.

Certainly, as English speakers we speak one of the widely spread and useful languages in history - a uniting force for good (and bad) in this age of globalization:  a force for education, commerce, diplomacy, entertainment and the spread of the gospel.  And for those reasons, English really does not need celebrating.

The Olympics in Sochi just finished last week. The Olympics are a time of celebrating athletic achievement and excellence by individuals, but also very much a time to celebrate national pride. As an American, it's always a bit of a given that we are going to get a lot of medals and so I usually reserve my excitement  for when the underdogs win, especially if it is somewhere I have lived or visited. Who doesn't celebrate a win by the Jamaican Bobsled Team? I remember rooting once for the Malian basketball team as they played the USA (and lost).

International Mother Tongue Day is a day to promote those unsung heroes among the languages of the world that are ignored in the medals count. So why do they matter when there are workhorse languages in each country that serve as languages of wider communication in areas like trade and education and politics? Every country has at least one of these, and might also use a regional language or international language like French, Spanish, Chinese or Arabic alongside their own "trade languages".

We celebrate Mother Tongues because 

• They are a  part of the rich cultural diversity, a testament to the creativity of mankind, and the inherent ability God has given us to adapt language to our contexts and cultures. As Morgan Freeman's character says in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, because God loves "wondrous variety". 
• Incredible complexity and wonderful nuggets of beauty and creativity are tucked away in each and every language, not to mention countless works of written or unwritten literature. (This one is for us linguists).

• The Mother Tongue is the language of the heart. Other languages speak to our head, but to speak to the heart, to affect change, to move someone to tears or action, there is nothing like the mother tongue.
• Nothing works better for education than using the Mother Tongue as the language of education, at least for the early years and then as a bridge to languages of wider communication.
• And nothing moves a country to development like solid education and literacy in the Mother Tongue.
• Social Justice issues have a huge advantage if treated in the mother tongue: fighting for gender and social equality, improvement in public health issues, eradication of hunger and poverty, improving the environmental. (See this excellent article from SIL Intl on "Why Languages Matter")

 Also you can celebrate and be thankful if

• you can consult the doctor in your mother tongue. (Even as a fluent French speaker, I find medical visits one of the most difficult domains to navigate in French - and most of the words are very similar to Englis). 
• your mother tongue is written down (or "instrumentalisée" as they say in Malian French) and there are materials to help you learn to read and write. And say a double "thank you" if your language has warehouses full of materials available to you rather than just a dozen or so titles. 
• you had the privilege of learning to read and write in your language. So many still have not had that opportunity. Others have only learned to read a national language but not their own. What a joy it is when they discover that their language can also be written down properly. 
• your encounters with civil authorities are in a language you can master, whether it be for a traffic violation,  a court appearance, an arrest, or registering to vote. There is nothing like legalese in another tongue. So much injustice happens because people can not navigate the civil system in their own countries due to language barriers.
•  you can worship and hear the Good News in a language that really reaches your heart!

And even if you, like me, fell into the "thankful" group of people whose language is already a "medal winner", join me in cheering for the minority languages around the world, that they might be recognized, developed and used for education and development and spiritual growth!