Language Fest 2020

Due to the strike action scheduled to take place at SOAS on 21 February our annual Language Fest to celebrate International Mother Language Day will take place virtually this year.

Follow the hashtags #IMLD2020 and #LanguageFest2020 in order not to miss anything!

Virtual Language Fest

Mother Language Spoken Word Showcase

Together with Chouette Films we produced four beautiful videos featuring spoken word artists Zena Edwards, Shareefa Energy, Jah-Mir Early and Joe Duggan. The videos will be released on our vimeo channel on 21 February.

The videos were funded by Arcadia - founded by Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, Arcadia supports charities and scholarly institutions to preserve cultural heritage, protect the environment, and promote open access.

Draw your metaphor

On our Twitter , Instagram and Facebook channels we will share images of metaphors from around the world. Participate by sending us pictures of your favourite metaphors in your language!

Tongue Tied - Do you speak your mother's tongue? Podcast release

In the context of UNESCO's International Year of Indigenous Languages 2019, SOAS World Languages Institute produced a series of podcasts together with SOAS Radio. Listen to the episode recorded by Adékúnmi Ọlátúnjí , and read about her experiences recording the episode on the ELAR blog .

Virtual editathon

Did you know 76% of users edit Wikipedia in English? This means only a tiny fraction of the world's linguistic diversity is represented on Wikipedia.

On International Mother Language Day we invite you to edit Wikipedia in languages other than English. You can find useful advice on how to edit Wikipedia articles here .

Let us know about your experiences using #LingWiki on social media!

Organiser: SOAS World Languages Institute