The International Mother Language Day has been celebrated for 20 years on February 21 and is dedicated to the preservation of the linguistic and cultural diversity in the world. This year it was once again celebrated in different cities in Bulgaria with celebrations, concerts and other various events and initiatives.

In Sofia the Association for Cultural Interaction hosted a festive program which took place on Saturday afternoon in the “Ramada” hotel in the capital. The event was attended also by representatives of the Muslim Denomination. Among them were the Chairman of the Supreme Muslim Council (SMC) Vedat Ahmed, the Deputy Grand Mufti Ahmed Hasanov, the Secretary of Grand Mufti’s Office Dzhelal Faik and others.

In Varna the Day of Mother Language was celebrated by the Turkish Cultural Association – Varna with rich program in which participated the children from the Turkish language course, carried out by the Association of the Turkish Language Teachers in Northern and Eastern Bulgaria, and the representatives of the association itself also took part in it. Among the official guests of the celebration were the Regional Mufti of Varna Nuray Shukri, the imam of the central mosque in Varna “Aziziye” Ismail Ahmedov, and the secretary of the local mufti’s office Fahredin Mollamehmed was one of the presenters of the festive program.

The International Mother Language Day was also celebrated in the city of Ruse on the initiative and the joint organization of several different ethno-cultural organizations. The festive concert in the Danube riparian city brought together hundreds of guests from the entire region. Among them were the Regional Mufti of Ruse Yudzhel Hyusnyu, the Consul General of the Republic of Turkey in Burgas Senem Gözel and many others.

In Razgrad the festive celebration on the occasion of the Mother Language Day was held under the title “The soul longs for conversation and the International Mother Language Day is just an occasion”.

The Mother Language Day has been celebrated since 2000 at the initiative of UNESCO, and from 2002 is was officially recognized also by the United Nations UN). The International Mother Language Day aims to emphasize on the importance of learning and speaking the mother language and aims to promote exactly multilingualism and the cultural diversity in the world. To the day present there are nearly 7000 different languages in the world, but most of them are spoken by very small groups of people.

Author: L. Chausheva