On the proposal of the Member States of UNESCO, the General Conference of the organization proclaimed International Mother Language Day in November 1999, which was first celebrated on 21 February 2000 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

The history of the holiday has a tragic beginning. Date of Feb. 21 is chosen because it was on this day in 1952, when five students died who participated in the demonstration for the provision of their native Bengali language an official status in Pakistan, part of which later became the independent state of Bangladesh.

Experts estimate that from 6700 languages that currently exist, most are under the threat of extinction in the next decade. Attracting international attention to this subject - is an important step towards recognition of the need to protect cultural diversity.

As a result of national census (2002) 67,5% of Ukrainian citizens call Ukrainian their native language.

Ukrainian language withstood severe tests over the time. This was caused by neglect of the language by Polish authorities, attempt of Russian czarist regime to turn the language into "dialect", Valuev and Emscan orders of banning the language, the desire to destroy it in the pretext of establishing "a single national language" in Soviet times (70 languages died in the USSR over seventy years).

The status of Ukrainian language is first obtained from the adoption of October 28, 1989 the Law of Ukraine "On Languages in Ukrainian SSR". With independence of Ukraine the process of Ukrainian language revival has begun.

This was facilitated by constitutional recognition of statehood of Ukrainian language and a number of government measures aimed at lifting the role and authority of Ukrainian language in public life. Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine confirms: "The state language in Ukraine is the Ukrainian language.

But the status of Ukrainian as the state language is formal: as long as it does not take its proper place in the sphere of culture, education and science.

Ukraine is home for many nationalities, thus it has a great linguistic diversity.

"We recognize our responsibility for the linguistic diversity of the country and are ready to do everything to preserve and promote the cultural identity of our citizens", - said a congratulatory message of the President Victor Yushchenko on the occasion of International Mother Language Day.

The fate of every nation is organically interwoven with the fate of its language. History has countless examples of how the disappearance of language cause the ethnicity disappearance. Only native speaker can store and cherish the native language.