Mr. Speaker, today is International Mother Language Day. UNESCO proclaimed this special day in November 1999.
The purpose of this day is to celebrate linguistic diversity and to raise our awareness of the wealth of languages. There are over 6,000 languages spoken in the world. Languages are a means of communication, but they also express our culture and identity. As the Director-General of UNESCO said, “They are the mirror of the souls of the societies in which they are born and they reflect the history of their contacts”.
To mark this important day, I invite Canadians to reflect on the importance, history and wealth of their own mother tongue and on the meaning it has in our life.