Background

The year 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of International Mother Language Day, a global milestone celebrating linguistic diversity and the importance of preserving mother tongues. This anniversary presents a critical opportunity to reflect on past achievements, address ongoing challenges, and explore new opportunities for embedding the mother tongue in libraries.

Language is a key pillar in cultural heritage, education, and inclusivity. However, libraries in South Africa and beyond continue to face challenges such as resource constraints, policy gaps, and lack of digital content in indigenous languages. This engagement aims to facilitate an interactive discussion on the role of libraries in revitalizing and promoting mother tongue usage in research, learning, and community engagement.

Objectives

• Engage in critical discussions on how libraries can advance the use of mother tongue in research, learning, and innovation.
• Identify key challenges in embedding mother tongue in library spaces.
• Showcase innovative initiatives and best practices in mother tongue preservation and promotion.
• Explore opportunities for collaboration among LIS professionals, language practitioners, and policymakers.
• Develop action points to strengthen language diversity in library collections, services, and programming.

Key discussion themes

• Mother tongue and knowledge access: the role of libraries in supporting multilingual learning resources.

   

• Digital inclusion and indigenous languages: strategies for enhancing the visibility of mother tongues in digital repositories and online platforms.

   

• Language policies and library services: Advocacy for strong institutional policies recognising indigenous languages in academia.

   

• Community engagement and language revitalization: how libraries can work with communities to preserve and promote indigenous languages.

   

• Technology, AI, and language preservation: opportunities and challenges in leveraging emerging technologies for mother-tongue development.