The International Mother Tongue Day was commemorated this week at the Ministry of iTaukei headquarters in Suva with a strong emphasis placed on strengthening mother tongue languages.
The Chief Guest was iTaukei linguistic Dr Apolonia Tamata from the University of the South Pacific who reiterated the importance of the event.
“We must ensure that our mother tongue is not only being used through the media but in other new medium too and of course in our communication within the family or community,” Apolonia said.
“United Nations International Mother Tongue Day theme is “Books for Mother Tongue Education” she said.
“Let us use our mother tongue in our everyday greeting with families and friends, let’s use our mother tongue in writing notices in our homes, let’s use our mother tongue to record our history and our culture and tradition,” she said.
She pointed out the importance of language classes and highlighted that the compulsory learning of these languages is a positive step for all Fijians.
“Now that the Ministry of Education will be enforcing the learning of intake and Hindi languages in all schools in Fiji from next year, it is a commendable move,” she said.
International Mother Tongue Day has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.
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