site.btaDRF-MRF Honours International Mother Language Day in Parliament

In Parliament, the group of Democracy, Rights and Freedoms - MRF (DRF-MRF) read a declaration to celebrate February 21, International Mother Language Day, and commemorate those Bulgarian citizens who lost their lives defending their name, language and culture. The declaration, read by MP Jeyhan Ibryamov, recalls that February 21 was designated by UNESCO as International Mother Language Day in 1999, and in 2002 it was recognized by the United Nations.

"Celebrating this day is important for every person and every nation. In Bulgaria observances are associated with particular sensitivity - for us this date is not only a holiday, but also a day to honour the memory of dozens of Bulgarian citizens who lost their lives defending their name, their language and their culture, to remember the thousands of repressed who sacrificed their freedom to preserve their identity, and to remember those who left their homelands and deprived themselves of all material possessions in the name of dignity and self-respect," said MP Jeyhan Ibryamov.

The declaration notes that mother tongue textbooks had been missing since 2002 and that at the beginning of 2023 the National Assembly achieved another small victory - the provision of mother tongue textbooks.

"The EU defines the mother tongue as the first of the eight European key competences for lifelong learning, alongside the official language, and these are curriculum subjects. In Bulgarian education, however, mother tongue classes are not a curriculum subject. We cannot accept that foreign language classes are included in the curriculum and mother tongue classes are not. For us it is equally important that Bulgarian citizens know both the official language and their minority language and that they know it well in order to have self-esteem as decent citizens and to communicate with self-respect in their mother tongue in order to have a richer world," said Jeyhan Ibryamov.