The fact is that, as a medium of learning crucial to the exercising of every form of social skill and professional activity, language plays a central part in building knowledge societies [...]. So teaching a mother language and multilingualism are the cardinal points of a sustainable development that safeguards each individual’s attachment to his or her native culture while ensuring that everyone can open up to others and reap the benefits of an increasingly interactive world. [...]
    To this effect, I would like, for this sixth International Mother Language Day, to draw attention and pay special tribute to the Braille and sign language used by millions of women and men of all ages and across every continent as tools of integration, communication, learning, information and expression. [...]
    I call on political decision-makers, civil society actors and all those who cherish the vast wealth that linguistic diversity represents for humankind to organize events throughout the world to celebrate, with creativity and generosity, each and every person’s mother tongue, and the languages of one and all.