Hasina: stop languages becoming extinct around world to retain diversity

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has emphasised the work to prevent languages from becoming extinct in the world in order to retain diversity.

“Language is an important thing for all the nations and it is easy for us to learn in our mother language. But unfortunately many languages are getting lost,” she said.

“It is very much necessary to preserve, practise and nourish the diversity of language across the world,” she said at the International Mother Language Award ceremony in Dhaka via video conferencing on Sunday, the Language Martyrs Day and International Mother Language Day.

Along with the 1952 Language Movement martyrs, she paid respects to the lovers of language across the world.

“We need to learn other languages for international communications. But we must learn our mother language,” she asserted.

The prime minister described the efforts of her government to preserve the languages of small ethnic groups in Bangladesh and their education in their mother tongue.

Hasina recalled how Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman contributed to the Language Movement that ushered the way to freedom from Pakistan eventually through the 1971 Liberation War under his leadership. 

Three people and an organisation received the first International Mother Language Award for their contribution to preservation and promotion of mother language nationally and internationally at the programme.

National Professor Mohammad Rafiqul Islam and Mathura Bikash Tripura, executive director of Jabrang Welfare Association in Khagrachhari, got the award for their work at the national level while at the international level, the government conferred the award on Islaimov Gulom Mirzaevich, an Uzbekistan researcher, and The Activismo Lenguas or Language Activism of Bolivia.

Prof Rafiqul and Mathura attended the event while Taher Shah, honorary consul of Uzbekistan, received the award on behalf of Mirzaevich. Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen took the award on behalf of The Activismo Lenguas.

Hasina regretted not being able to pay respects to the martyrs at the Shaheed Minar and join the awards ceremony in person due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“It would have been a great honour and matter of pride for me had I been able to hand the award to my respected teacher Mr Rafiqul Islam,” said Hasina, a former student of Dhaka University’s Bangla department.

Beatrice Kaldun, UNESCO representative in Bangladesh, also spoke at the programme.

Deputy Education Minister Mohibul Hassan Chowdhoury Nowfel, Bangla Academy Director General Habibullah Sirajee, and Jinnat Imtiaz Ali, director general of International Mother Language Institute, among others, attended the ceremony.