Móðurmál – the Association on Bilingualism celebrated International Mother Language Day today, 21 February 2022, through collaborations, projects, social media, and an interview on the Icelandic National Radio.
Móðurmál participated in creating a common greeting on this day, together with five international heritage language coalitions. In this YouTube video, representatives of Heritage Language Education Network in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, International and Heritage Languages Association (IHLA) in Edmonton, Canada, Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools in the US, Mother Tongues in Dublin, Ireland, and Forum of Heritage Language Coalitions in Europe (FOHLC Europe) explain how they and their associated schools celebrate the day.
Móðurmál also invited the interested public on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to post photos of languages and multilingual signs in their environment with hashtags #modurmalsamtok #motherlanguageday #ourlanguagegarden. The inspiration for this language awareness initiative came from Mother Tongues in Dublin, Ireland.
Mother tongue groups celebrated with children and families, for example, the Lithuanian school Three Colours (Trys Spalvos) organized a successful reading competition, the Ukrainian group prepared a book exhibition and a concert, and the Russian group offered a guided tour in Reykjavík Art Gallery. The library of Móðurmál organized an online book exchange market between 12 and 22 February. Móðurmál library gave away around 250 good books, extra copies or books not suitable for the library and found them a new home. Interested readers only had to comment or send a message within the Facebook post.
The Icelandic National Radio invited Móðurmál for a short interview for the series “Mannlegi þátturinn” (Eng. The Human Element) about the importance of mother tongues. The recording is available in the archive here (minutes 29:00-37:37).
If you are looking for resources in children’ mother tongues, visit Móðurmál library that currently houses over 8000 books in 86 languages, or find online resources in the Heritage Language Hub, with access to books in over 700 languages and tools for creating books in learners’ home languages. Or visit EU-Speak for bilingual books in adult learners’ home/heritage languages.