Mother tongue day was celebrated here in Peshawar, Pakistan, hosted by Gandhara Hindko Adabi Board, Pakistan. Scholars, researchers and common people of eleven languages participated in it. Before the workshop a walk was made, lead by the deputy speaker of the NWFP Assembly Mr. Ikram Ullah Shahid. The MNA, Maulana Abdul Akber Chitrali was the Chief Guest.

The Speakers of eleven languages, Khowar, Palula, Dameli, Kalasha, and Gawar-bati, languages spoken in Chitral district, Torwali, Gawri, and Gojri, languages of Swat, Ormuri of South Waziristan and Pashai of Afghanistan along with Pashto and Hindko speakers jointly celebrated the mother tongue day. They made a short walk holding banners demanding the development of the lesser-known languages spoken in the area.

Following the walk participants were invited to join a meeting hosted by the Gandhara Hindko Adabi Board, Pakistan. Many of the participants made speeches in their mother tongues with translation in Urdu. Due to rough weather and blockage of road many representatives could not come from the mountaneous regions but they sent their messages through others living nearby.

The people who delivered their speech were Prof, Khatir Ghaznavi, Dr, Zahoor Ahmad Awan, Maj. (r) Qazi Saeed , Rozi Khan Burki, Zia ud din, M. Shareef Shakib, Inam Ullah, Jahangir Khan, Qari abdul Salam, Shamshi Khan Kalami, Qazi Inayat Jalil, Asmat Ullah, Abdul Hakim Sailab, Fanoos Gujar, Muhammad Awais Qarni and Mutahir Shah.

In their speeches the participants made a variety of demands. They demanded time in the media, especially on TV, and the appointment of local teachers in the schools. “Our children are facing a great difficulty because the teachers come from other languages and our children do not understand their language” said Mr. Asmat Ullah of Chitral, who is doing language research on Dameli, his own mother tongue.

At the end, a joint resolution was passed demanding establishment of a government centre for training people from the lesser-known languages and development of orthographies for these languages at the University of Peshawar.

“We should hold meetings three or four times in a year to discuss our mother tongues “ said the Chief guest, MNA Maulana Abdul Akber Chitrali. He also promised to deliver the messages to the speakers in the National Assembly of Pakistan.

This was the first 1st time that a great number of speakers of different languages gathered here in the provincial capital and made speeches on universal mother tongue day. The people hope the government will change its language policies to benefit all of the language communities.

Following this event, several newspapers of city published news, articles, editorials and pictures about the mother tongue day meeting which had taken place.

The daily Aaj ran the following headline:

"Demand for the establishment of languages development Centre.”

The article was very positive and said that representatives of 20 languages participated in a seminar in City University. It also gave the names of the languages represented in the Mother Tongue Day function. It pointed out that the participants called for the development of some educational materials in their languages. It critised the govenament for its lack of support for these local languages, and demanded time in electronic media for local languages.

The daily Mashriq Peshawar also spoke positively about the event.

It quoted Ikramullah Shahid, Deputy Speaker as saying that the development of local languages is the responsibility of the government. The linguists have shown the importance and benefit of local languages. Every one should given the right of mother tongu eduction.

Daily express Peshawar says called for the establishment of a center for all languages and appointments of mother-tongue teachers in villages. It pointed out that in many parts of the world, much is being done to preserve and to promote people’s languages and cultures, but nothing is happening here. This province has a number of languages but the govenament does not give any attention to them. TV and Radio has airtime available for only a few languages spoken in Pakistan.

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