To promote the recognition and practice of the world’s mother tongues, International Mother Language Day is celebrated annually on February 21. The celebration this year highlights the importance of multilingualism, foreign languages learning, and translations for peace and dialogue, within the framework of the International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures.

An updated data base on the World’s Languages in Danger provides information about approximately 2,500 endangered languages around the world. Of the close to 7,000 languages listed in the database, two have become extinct during the last two generations, 538 are critically endangered, 502 are severely endangered, 600 are definitely endangered, and 607 are unsafe.

These figures are disturbing, When languages die, not only words disappear but also ways of seeing and describing reality and valuable knowledge and worlds of thought. The death of a language leads to the disappearance of many forms of indescribable cultural heritage, especially the heritage of traditions and oral expressions of the community that spoke it, from poems to proverbs to jokes.

Many people are alarmed when a plant or animal species become extinct. A language dying hits even closer to us for it means a unique creation of human beings is gone from the world. The loss of languages is also disadvantageous to man’s understanding of biodiversity as they transmit much knowledge about nature and the universe. When a language is lost, a nation and culture lose their memory together with the complicated tapestry into which the world is woven.

A language is an expression of the various facets of a society’s culture. A language tells stories, recounts the past, expresses plans for the future, and passes on the way of life of a community. It is a treasure trove of information which is lost each time a language dies.

Languages express the identity of a people. As the most powerful instrument of preserving and developing tangible and intangible heritage, it motivates solidarity among nations based on understanding, tolerance, and dialogue.