Preparations to commemorate International Mother Tongue Day in high gear

Uganda will on Tuesday February 21st 2017 commemorate the International Mother Tongue Day.

This day has been observed annually since 2000. This year’s main celebrations will be held at the Uganda National Cultural Centre- also known as the National Theater.

This year’s International Mother Tongue day will be celebrated under an international theme; “Towards Sustainable Futures through Multilingual Education.”

However, the state minister for Gender and Community Development Hon. Peace Mutuuzo says Uganda will commemorate the day under a national theme; “Promoting use of Local languages in learning for National development.”

The minister told the press at the Uganda media centre this morning that the overall objective for commemorating this day is to advocate for the recognition of mother-tongues in delivering National development through use of local languages in all avenues.

“ A few researchers have shown that use of mother tongue in the learning process enables children to easily grasp the course content as they are used to the vocabulary” the minister said.

According to Mutuuzo Uganda has about 65 indigenous tribes and each of these at least has a certain way they communicate among themselves which is known as language.

“All may not be at the same level of development but we can start somewhere to develop these languages so that none of the Ugandans are discriminated because of their language. Ugandans in general know how to use their mother tongue based multilingualism in very useful ways” she said.

The minister added that when Ugandans come into contact with each other through travel, marriage, and businesses for example, that encourages them to learn each other’s languages spontaneously and based on needs.