The Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru, celebrated the International Mother Language Day on Feb.21. On this occasion, cultural events representing different mother-tongues of the country were organised.

Prof. B.N. Pattanaik, former Professor of Linguistics, IIT Kanpur, inaugurated the programme. He equated the mother-tongue as a bridge between different generations and a channel for the transmission of knowledge over generation to generation.

Prof. Vikram K. Das, retired Senior Professor of Linguistics, spoke on the role of mother-tongues  in a Diasporic Context and Prof. V. Giridhar Rao of Azim Premji University, Bangalore, delivered a lecture on ‘Esparanto as a Home Language.’

After the inaugural session, 14 books representing various mother-tongues and different facets of language studies were released.  Prof. D.G. Rao, Director, CIIL, Mysore presided.

Prof. P. Umarani, Deputy Director, CIIL, briefed about her previous research experience of working with speakers of the minorities languages of Tibeto-Burman family and expressed her concern over the state of endangerment of those languages.

Dr. L. Ramamoorthy, Officer in-charge LDC-IL, welcomed.  Dr. G. Prabhakar; Pankaj Dwivedi, Sujoy Sarkar, Aleendra Bramha and Dr. Prem Kumar delivered lectures on different aspects of mother-language. Tariq Khan proposed a vote of thanks. B.M. Lingaraj compered. All the staff of CIIL and its schemes actively took part in the celebration and exhibited their talent in various events like singing, elocution, dance, poem recitation etc., in their respective mother tongues.