Mother Language Week was held at the Institute of International Education

February 21 is International Mother Language Day.

When speaking about the native language, the words of Chingiz Aitmatov come to mind: “The immortality of a people lies in its language.” Of course, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the language in which each of us once discovered the world for the first time. Families told fairy tales in their native language, sang their favorite songs, conveyed peculiarities of speech and thinking, and honored and preserved traditions. The date for the holiday was not chosen by chance: on this day in 1952, a peaceful demonstration in defense of the Bengali language was organized in Pakistan. Thanks to this initiative, Bengali was recognized as the official language.

Traditionally, the Department of the Russian Language (as a Foreign Language) of the Institute of International Education of RTU MIREA holds a number of events dedicated to International Mother Language Day.

In 2024, the grand opening of the Mother Language Week took place on February 12 at the monument to M.V. Lomonosov on the campus of the M.V. Lomonosov Institute of Fine Chemical Technologies. Students learned about the scientist’s great contribution to the development of literature: he managed to lay the foundations of Russian scientific terminology, rhetoric, grammar and stylistics, and carry out a number of necessary language reforms. M.V. Lomonosov is rightfully considered one of the founders of Russian linguistics.

The students of the Institute of Management Technologies visited the State Museum of A.S. Pushkin, where they got acquainted with the biography of the poet-founder of the modern Russian literary language.

The audience listened to poems and songs in the native languages of the peoples inhabiting the Russian Federation, as well as foreign students from the Institute of International Education of RTU MIREA. Discussions about the characteristics and significance of their native languages aroused great interest among students.

Over the past week, students from different parts of the world studying Russian as a foreign language were able to demonstrate the uniqueness of their native language. The variety of spoken speech in various dialects was astonishing with their melodicity, melodiousness, phonetic diversity and intonation pattern.

Fairy tales of the peoples of the world became the basis in preparation for the event “Evening of Legends, Tales and Magic”, which was held in the format of an interactive and dramatization of elements of fairy tales. Students from Azerbaijan, Algeria, Belarus, Vietnam, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Syria, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan told their favorite national fairy tales and legends, and then tried on the roles of the main characters of famous Russian folk tales.