Promoting the dissemination of mother tongues is essential to maintaining linguistic and cultural diversity in the world. Marking International Mother Language Day (MLD), UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova emphasized that "the use of mother languages in a multilingual approach is an essential component of quality education, which is itself the foundation for empowering women and men and their societies.”
The theme of MLD 2016 is “Quality education, language(s) of instruction and learning outcomes."
The choice of theme for 2016 corresponds to the fact that the promotion and preservation of linguistic diversity figure prominently in the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to enable minorities, indigenous peoples and rural populations to acquire the skills, knowledge and values needed to become everything they wish and to participate fully in their societies, which requires that the use of their languages in education be guaranteed.
To mark MLD, the National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI) will hold the first international congress on legal pluralism and the linguistic rights of indigenous peoples.
For more information, see: http://www.inali.gob.mx/
