Mother Language Day

On February 21, 2024, on the International Mother Language Day, the Moscow Pedagogical State University held an important action in support of cultural and linguistic diversity – an interesting and bright “Mother Language Day at MPGU”. In the Russian Federation, the preservation and development of native languages is an important part of the Strategy of State National Policy till 2025.

Moscow educational organizations have been regularly celebrating this day for almost 20 years, MPGU has been the largest city platform since 2017. The celebration for students, schoolchildren, college students and all comers travels to different units of the university. This year it was hospitably welcomed by the Faculty of Preschool Pedagogy and Psychology.

A distinctive feature of this year’s event is a large number of guests: representatives of different public organizations and compatriots came to the university to welcome the participants, to tell about the culture of different peoples of Russia. The grand opening became a kaleidoscope of creative findings and demonstration of various talents.

The guests of the event spoke about the importance of preserving and transmitting the languages and cultures of the peoples of Russia to the next generation. The Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Interregional Public Organization “Karelian Commonwealth” made a welcome speech. A very interesting experience of language preservation and transmission to children was presented by the family group of Mari immersive theater “Kalyk Shynyk”. No less interesting concert composition was shown by the creative team of the Regional Public Organization for Assistance to the Preservation and Development of Udmurt Culture “Gerd”.

During Mother Language Day in the foyer and classrooms of the faculty worked a variety of interactive platforms, where students from different departments of the university, teachers, schoolchildren and college students were engaged in creativity, play and learn new things about the cultural and linguistic diversity of the peoples of the world and Russia. For almost three hours, participants and guests of the festival did not leave the interactive space where they could test themselves in different types of activities.

The “Linguistic Lounge” combined a fascinating lecture by a professor of MPGU about Yuri Knorozov, the Soviet researcher who was the first to decipher the Maya script, with interesting facts about the culture of pre-Columbian Americans and a presentation of a project on the comparative analysis of Chinese and Russian proverbs by sixth-grade girls from a Moscow school. In the “Literary and Art Lounge” the participants got acquainted with the ancient Karelian epic “Kalevala”, which was told by guests from the regional public organization “Korelia Commonwealth”, and the method of “native teaching” of the native language through immersive theater. The visitors of the “Intercultural Lounge” with great interest were looking for answers to the questions of the ethnographic Olympiad about the languages and traditions of the peoples of Russia, which was conducted by the teachers of the Faculty of Regional Studies and Ethnocultural Education. The “Communicative Lounge” in the foyer offered participants two master classes from psychology students and sign language students, who familiarized those interested with the projective technique of analyzing a person’s personality based on his drawings and with sign language and dactyl alphabet.

Within the framework of the “Creative Lounge” the participants had an opportunity to try themselves in various kinds of creativity – for example, in the art of calligraphy using the Slavonic alphabet and Chinese characters (under the guidance of real native speakers) or in making crafts, drawings and applications in various techniques based on folk culture motifs (a series of master classes by students of the Institute of Childhood). At the platform “Business card of the peoples of the world” students from Institute of Foreign Languages introduced the participants amazing traditions and customs of the peoples of the world, and the participants guessed which country or region of Russia this or that custom was associated with.

The greatest excitement was in the game spaces, where students and undergraduates of ISGO MPGU offered guests to participate in games – “Ethnozagadki”, organized in the form of riddles-dummies, and the familiar “Crocodile” – a game for the development of non-verbal communication through the image and guessing of words conveyed by facial expressions and gestures.
During the whole day in the foyer there was an open video platform “Language Mosaic of MPGU”, where it was possible to record a greeting, a poem or a song in native language.