International Mother Language Day is observed across the world on February 21 to highlight the significance of linguistic diversity and multiculturalism.
According to the United Nations, an estimated 6000 languages are spoken in the world and around 43 percent of them are endangered.
CGTN asked people across different countries in Africa whether they could speak their mother tongue and a majority of them answered in the affirmative that they were well versed with their mother tongue.
“Cwi-nya-yo ma-daa”, says Beatrice Lamaka in her mother tongue.
“My name is Beatrice Lamwaka, my mother tongue is Acholi. I speak Acholi, I dream in Acholi, everything, I think first in Acholi so my English is Acholi-English.”
In an exclusive interview with a Kenyan multilingual, Hellen Mtawali, who speaks 16 languages, she told us that she has had a passion for languages since she was young and mostly learns them from music.
”Part of the way I would learn the language is to master songs so if I want to get the vocabulary I get to grasp a few songs then I get to learn the right tonation before I know it someone is speaking to me in that language because they believe I know the language and that’s how I learned those languages”
16 languages are not enough for her, she says she intends to learn more including the Chinese language.
Mtawali now boasts of how being multilingual has opened her doors in different world stages
”At a time I was invited to lead worship in an African leaders conference they need to hire people from other parts of the continent they only had me to sing songs from different parts of the world”
As the world celebrates world mother tongue she is now asking people not to forget their mother tongue regardless of where they grew up as it forms part of their identity.
”Please know you have an identity, don’t forget where you come from don’t forget your mother tongue because that’s the first language your mother spoke that binds you”.
