Straight Talk Abdul Mannan Abdul Mannan 21st February will be observed throughout the world as the International Mother Language Day. In 1999 UNESCO recognized the day as an International Mother Language Day. The general consensus is that there are between six to seven thousand languages currently spoken around the world and around 50% to 90% of them will have become extinct by the end of this century. The UNESCO’s recognition came through intense lobbying with the help of Bangladesh government by two Bangladeshi’s living in Canada, Abdus Salam and Rafiqul Islam. Muscle, money and merit have always been used as tools of repression and exploitation for time immemorial. All the colonial rulers used these tools to conquer others’ territories forcefully and rule and exploit them for centuries. For the first time, the Pakistan rulers tried to use language as a tool to exploit the inhabitants of East Bengal immediately after the Jinnah’s state of Pakistan was created in 1947. The language they planned to use as a tool of exploitation was Urdu, spoken by less than 6 per cent of the people of entire Pakistan and that too those who migrated from India to Pakistan after1947.