Backgrounder: Int'l Mother Language Day

DHAKA, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh observed on Thursday "The International Mother Language Day" with other countries around the world.

"The International Language Day" is also called the Language Martyrs' Day in Bangladesh. It is commemorated to the martyrs who fought in the 1952 Language Movement and laid down their lives to establish Bangla as the state language of Pakistan.

On the day in 1952, many brave youths of the then east-Pakistan, now Bangladesh, embraced martyrdom in police firing in the streets of Dhaka while protesting the then Pakistani rulers' declaration that the Urdu would be state language.

Bangladesh became an independent and sovereign country in 1971 from Pakistan.

On Nov. 17, 1999, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared that the February 21 is the international Day to mark the Mother Language Movement.

Over the last nine years, February 21 has been observed as the "International Mother Language Day" in 188 countries across the world.