The International Mother Language Day was celebrated at UNESCO

On February 21, 2021, the International Mother Language Day was celebrated at the initiative of the Embassy of Bangladesh in France, jointly organized by the Embassy and the UNESCO Secretariat.

28 countries, including Azerbaijan, took part in the event, organized virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. First, Bangladesh's Ambassador to France and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, Kazi Imtiaz Hossain, and UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education, Stefania Giannini, spoke about mother language, education and the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education today. Then, videos prepared by the countries on the occasion of the International Mother Language Day were broadcast.

An excerpt from Nizami Ganjavi's poem "Khosrov and Shirin" is reflected in the poster for the exhibition prepared by our Permanent Delegation as a part of the "Year of Nizami Ganjavi", declared in Azerbaijan.

Accompanied by the Swiss Lancy Orchestra, Nadya Utkina performed Uzeyir Hajibeyli's romance-gazelle "Sevgili Janan" to the words of Nizami Ganjavi, and our compatriot Mariya Khan-Khoyskaya, who lives in Switzerland, danced in the cultural program of the event.

In the video presentation, the diplomat of our Permanent Delegation Nigar Gurbanova briefed about the history, etymology and development of Azerbaijani language. Moreover, she noted that more than 50 million people in the world speak Azerbaijani today. Then Gurbanova said that despite the fact that the state language is Azerbaijani in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Azerbaijan, being the hub of civilizations, the rights and freedoms of all ethnic groups living in the country are fully protected. At the end, she read an excerpt from Nizami Ganjavi's poetry in Azerbaijani and English.