International Mother Language Day is celebrated globally on 21 February.

2021 will be the fourth consecutive year that Manchester has celebrated the event. In 2019 and 2020 over 5,000 people engaged with activity across the city centre and neighbourhoods. The event is always a celebration of the nearly 200 languages spoken in Manchester and of the cultural diversity that is one of the city’s strengths.

The events involve libraries, cultural venues, community groups, universities, schools, poets and writers. For 2021 we are increasing the cultural content of the programme and making international links with other UNESCO Creative Cities, particularly through online platforms.

Events happening between 16 and 28 February will be celebrating friendship and food – and also the opening of the brand new Manchester Poetry Library. Come and be entranced by multilingual story telling for families, try your hand at Mandarin with the Confucius Institute, be part of the audience for the ever-popular multi-language mushaira (a night of song and poetry) and hear how you can be involved in Manchester Museum’s community translation project. Artist Semay Wu will also be creating a special Manchester Audio Cookbook artwork made up of recipes and stories in different languages.

From 16th-28th February we will be celebrating with a series of events from a range of partners, see below to find out everything that’s happening, and you can click each event to find out more about it and book your place.

Join in the conversation with us @MCRCityofLit, using the hashtag #MCRIMLD21 and #MotherLanguageDay.