Bangladeshi Student Association Leads Day of Language Appreciation at Wellesley

In celebration of International Mother Language Day, the Wellesley Bangladeshi Student Association (BSA), has reconstructed a replica of the Shahid Minar, a monument in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where this UN-recognized holiday originated. This structure will be on display all day on Friday at the east entrance of the Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center.

A poster, created in celebration of the day last year, which contains the quote: "My [name of language], I love you" in about 30 different languages, will be posted near the Shahid Minar. BSA invites Wellesley students to contribute to this miniature replica of the Shahid Minar by posting words, phases, sentences, or names in their respective languages on the structure.

In addition to creating the Shahid Minar, the BSA, in collaboration with Slater International Center, will host a Global Tea on Friday, February 21, at Slater House.

Here students and other members of the community can come together to celebrate the languages of the world and the significance of language in our daily lives. Further, BSA has filmed a video of Wellesley students reading a few lines from various poems, representing just seven of the estimated seven thousand language that exist around the world.

"Through these activities," says the BSA's Amyeo Jereen '14, "we hope to pay respect to as many of the seven thousand languages that are spoken globally as we can."