Baybayin Takes Global Spotlight at UNESCO’s Celebration of International Mother Language Day 2024
PARIS 27 February 2024 - The Permanent Delegation of the Philippines to UNESCO participated in the 2024 UNESCO celebration of International Mother Language Day (IMLD) hosted by the Permanent Delegation of Bangladesh to UNESCO. Pursuant to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 56/262 adopted in 2002, the celebration calls upon Member States and the United Nations Secretariat to contribute to the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world.
The Philippines shared books and videos to introduce baybáyin - the ancient and traditional scripts of indigenous Filipinos - to guests and counterparts in order to convey baybáyin’s unique history and recent revival in social media and its popularity among the younger generation of Filipinos. Visitors at the Philippine booth, which included Ambassadors and Permanent Delegates, UNESCO officials and personnel, were invited to practice writing their names in baybáyin, and they in turn shared with the Philippine delegation how their own systems of writing resembled or differed from the Philippines’ baybáyin.
Apart from being the focus of this year's Philippine celebration of International Mother Language Day, the Philippines is also working towards inscribing baybáyin documents in the UNESCO Memory of the World (MOW) International Register. END
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