{"id":79994,"date":"2025-03-08T11:33:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T09:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/dresden-feiert-den-internationalen-tag-der-muttersprache\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T11:48:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T09:48:37","slug":"dresden-feiert-den-internationalen-tag-der-muttersprache","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/dresden-feiert-den-internationalen-tag-der-muttersprache\/","title":{"rendered":"Dresden celebrates International Mother Language Day*"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Did you know that Valentine\u2019s Day isn\u2019t just a celebration of love, but also \u201cMettbr\u00f6tchen Day\u201d? Much to the delight of all the uncreative cultural journalists in Germany, it seems there\u2019s something to celebrate almost every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some days are endorsed by the United Nations. People have probably wanted every day to be special for as long as they\u2019ve been watching the sun rise in the morning. In the Christian calendar, every day is dedicated to at least one saint, and every person has a name day. In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III even introduced the holiday \u201cAll Saints\u2019 Day\u201d because there were so many more saints and martyrs than there were days in the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInternational Mother Language Day\u201d is relatively new. It has been celebrated on February 21 since the year 2000. And yet it looks back on an eventful history. For, as one might imagine, it is often the case that something is celebrated only when it is no longer taken for granted. And the 20th century was indeed a century full of attempts to regulate, suppress, and eradicate small languages. But even without anyone intending it, small languages such as Sorbian in Saxony are finding it increasingly difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A day begins<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The idea of establishing a Mother Language Day originated in India. In the late 1940s, there were plans in the newly founded state of East Bengal (now Bangladesh) to introduce Urdu as the official language. Urdu is spoken by many Indian Muslims and written in Arabic script. The problem: a large part of the population did not speak Urdu at all, but rather Bengali. Protests broke out, starting at the University of Dhaka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1952, the situation escalated once again. Urdu was to be elevated to the sole official language, even though it was the native language of only 3% of the population. During protests in Dhaka on February 21, police fired on demonstrators; ten students were killed. They became \u201cmartyrs of the Bengali Language Movement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Risking one\u2019s life for one\u2019s own native language? For most Germans, that is probably hard to imagine. The German language has always had competition in the Middle Ages, Latin was the language of scholars; French became the language of the nobility; and today, you\u2019re at a disadvantage if you don\u2019t know English. But the German mother tongue has at least on German territory; in Siberia, for example, things were different never really been suppressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Diversity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a means of communication, languages should really be something that brings people together rather than dividing them. According to some estimates depending on how one distinguishes between \u201clanguage\u201d and \u201cdialect\u201d there are still 1,500 languages spoken in India today. Even if a stricter count yields a lower number, it remains an impressive figure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By comparison: There are only 225 indigenous languages in Europe. And yes, before anyone asks: \u201cEuropean Day of Languages\u201d is celebrated on September 26. While there are repeated attempts by right-wing parties in Germany to enshrine German as the country\u2019s sole language in the Basic Law, India has as many as 22 official languages. The best known of these are likely Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Marathi, Nepali, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, and Urdu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\u2019s linguistic diversity is also linked to its size. Did you know that a single Indian state, Rajasthan, is roughly the same size as Germany and has a similar population?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International Mother Language Day aims to promote the visibility of lesser-known languages and multilingualism. Since the protests of 1952, Bangladesh has had two national languages: Urdu and Bengali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A friend of mine is from India, and for him it\u2019s perfectly normal that seven languages are spoken in his hometown and that every child can at least understand all seven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Birthe M\u00fchlhoff<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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* in cooperation with Kolibri e.V.<\/a> and Indian Association Dresden e.V.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alle Begegnungen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

ANSPRECHBAR<\/em><\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Wir sind ANSPRECHBAR \u2013 f\u00fcr ein besseres Miteinander! Wir bringen Menschen ins Gespr\u00e4ch \u2013 unabh\u00e4ngig von Sprache, Kultur, Alter, Geldbeutel oder sozialer Stellung \u2013 bei kreativen Workshops, Ausstellungen und in einem Interview-Magazin mit einf\u00fchlsamen Portr\u00e4ts.<\/em> Seid dabei und lasst uns gemeinsam Br\u00fccken bauen!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Zeitraum<\/strong>
01-12.2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Projektbeteiligte<\/strong>
Yvonn Spauschus<\/a> (Projektleitung)
Yulia Vishnichenko<\/a> \u00b7<\/strong> Moussa Mbarek<\/a> \u00b7<\/strong> Nadine W\u00f6lk<\/a> \u00b7<\/strong> Rosa Brockelt<\/a> \u00b7<\/strong> Bela \u00c1lvarez<\/a> (Workshopleitung)
Rosa Hauch<\/a> \u00b7<\/strong> Birthe M\u00fchlhoff<\/a> (Moderation und Dokumentation)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kooperationspartner:innen<\/strong>
JugendKunstschule Dresden – Standort Passage<\/a>, Omse e.V.<\/a>, Malteser Hilfsdienste e.V., Montagscaf\u00e9 am Staatsschauspiel Dresden<\/a> sowie Umweltzentrum Dresden – ABC Tische<\/a>, Internationale G\u00e4rten Dresden e.V<\/a>, Uniwerk e.V.<\/a> (Pirna), Buntes Mei\u00dfen B\u00fcndnis Zivilcourage e.V.<\/a> und viele mehr<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Gef\u00f6rdert durch<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Das Projekt wird gef\u00f6rdert durch die Heidehof Stiftung GmbH<\/a> und das Staatsministerium f\u00fcr Soziales und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt<\/a>. Diese Ma\u00dfnahme wird mitfinanziert mit Steuermitteln auf Grundlage des vom S\u00e4chsischen Landtag beschlossenen Haushaltes im Rahmen des Landesprogrammes Integrative Ma\u00dfnahmen<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Did you know that Valentine\u2019s Day isn\u2019t just a celebration of love, but also \u201cMettbr\u00f6tchen Day\u201d? Much to the delight of all the uncreative cultural journalists in Germany, it seems there\u2019s something to celebrate almost every day. Some days are endorsed by the United Nations. People have probably wanted every day to be special for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":79587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1087],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-responsive-encounters"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79996,"href":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79994\/revisions\/79996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kulturaktiv.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}