The celebration was proposed by Bangladesh and approved during the 1999 General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

IMLD has been commemorated worldwide since 2000, when then-United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan endorsed the initiative in his speech.

Despite the importance of preserving the diversity of languages and dialects, many of them are in danger of disappearing, which puts the culture of these peoples, their identity, values, and traditions at risk.

To counteract such a problem, it is planned that some of those languages will join the educational systems in the future, or through currently available technological means.

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