TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The 21st of February is known as Amor Ekushey.
It’s more commonly referred to as International Mother Language Day.
The idea is to preserve the privileges to speak and write in someone’s mother tongue, meaning their native language.
“We pay tribute to the martyrs who sacrificed their life for the Bengali language in 1952 21 February,” said Israt Jahan, who organized an event Sunday at the New Tampa Performing Arts Center.
It’s a day deep rooted in history, something that all started back in the early 1950s with a language dispute in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
“The language of Bangla, which was spoken by the majority, was not recognized by the government as an official state language,” said Assistant Event Director Nafisa Uddin. “When the majority of the people are speaking the language they found it unfair their language wasn’t recognized.”
So a large group of students started protesting.
“The students lead a peaceful protest which lead to violent backlash from the government at the time,” Uddin explained.
The movement, turned into a massacre as armed forces began killing the protesters.
Now, nearly 72 years later, February 21st serves as a day of both heartbreak and hope.
“The message the 21 of February gave us is that we love everyone’s language, we respect your language,” Jahan said. “We should hold our language and heritage.”
“It’s kind of a day that’s been immortalized in our history,” Uddin said. “That’s what Amor Ekushey means, ‘Immortal 21st,’ because it was such a great movement to protect the right to one’s language and in turn to one’s culture and identity which I think many people can relate to.”
