Native Language is the Soul of a Nation
On February 20, the Belarusian State University of Foreign Languages celebrated International Mother Language Day. Established by UNESCO in 1999, this holiday brought together students, faculty, and staff at the university for the following events:
The National Dictation of the Belarusian Language;
Interactive zones and the concert program "Native Language — the Soul of the Nation."
This year's National Dictation was dedicated to the Year of the Belarusian Woman. The text for the dictation was Ales Zvonak's poem "Belarusian Women." Deans, deputy deans of faculties, faculty, students, and graduate students of the university participated in the writing process.
The ceremonial part of the event in the foyer of the assembly hall opened with a performance by soloists from the Art Group pop vocal studio. Vice-Rector for Ideological and Educational Work Olga Soldatova addressed the audience with a welcoming speech.
The concert program turned into a veritable journey across the linguistic map of the world. The hosts shared fascinating facts: the complexities of Estonian phonetics, the 38 periods of the day in the Kyrgyz language, the tonality of Chinese, and the three writing systems of Japanese. The concert participants treated the audience to touching Belarusian compositions, poems in Kazakh, Estonian, and Farsi, a rousing song in Arabic, classical Japanese poetry, a daring Russian quadrille, and the lively Belarusian folk dance "Mikita." A touching example of how foreigners embrace the Belarusian language and culture was the performance by a professor from the Belarusian State University of Foreign Languages (BSUL), who performed the song "Moy Rodny Kut," familiar to every Belarusian since childhood.
These events, timed to coincide with International Mother Language Day, became a symbol of the dialogue of cultures: by respecting and studying other languages, we begin to understand and appreciate our own even more deeply. Our native language accompanies us from the first days of life and remains the main key to understanding the world.
