Awarding Ceremony in the National Assembly on Mother Language Day.

On February 21 a group of teachers of Armenian Language and Literature of the schools of Yerevan and marzes, leading specialists of the sphere were hosted in the parliament. The RA NA Speaker Samvel Nikoyan signed an order on Mother Language Day and on their awarding for the contribution to the preservation of Armenian language. Samvel Nikoyan solemnly awarded with the RA NA Medal of Honour Doctor, professor, Samvel Muradyan, Head of YSU Armenian Literature Chair and Doctor, professor Vazgen Hambardzumyan, Director of the Institute of Language the RA Academy of Sciences of Armenia (NAS) with the RA NA Diploma the teachers attending the meeting. Congratulating the pedagogues the RA NA Speaker Samvel Nikoyan said:

“Dear friends, I welcome all of you in the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, and I am glad that the occasion of hosting you is the Mother Language Day. In 1999 the UNESCO proclaimed February 21 International Mother Language Day. From 2005 it had also been included in our state calendar.

Those, who teach Mother Language and Literature are the blood vein, through which our language, reaching to us, continues its eternal circulation, guaranteeing and ensuring the Armenian people’s march in the vision of the future.

Dear teachers and lecturers, you are the people, who know very well the value and the importance of the Mother Language, moreover, with their daily activity are engaged with injecting all that through generations. Hamo Sahyan said: “What do we have in the world, which is ours so much?” Summarizing everybody’s attitude towards our language proves the lines by Sahyan. All of us should think about that everywhere, because the preservation of the language begins from the family, obtains full life at school and it is continued through our attitude in the whole life.

We also succeeded to maintain our vitality thanks to the Mother Language in the phases of history, accepting encroachment against the language as encroachment against life and soul, threat towrads present and future, our identity. We have overcome the parts even seeming irresistible on the way of our self-affirmation. We have overcome through centuries, because besides Armenian soldiers we also had and we have Armenian teachers, who with their work has made the sound and letter not less stronger, than the weapon, and have taught to use them. We had and we have scientists of language and word, who have always reminded us that it’s better to be blind in eye, than blind in thought, because the blind nations’ future is without perspectives and vague.

Dear friends, I am thankful for your work, activity to preserve the language, and hence the nation that you carry out without show and thunderous words without perception that the assessment of your work is for time and generations.

Certainly, the need of also mastering foreign languages with the prevalence of Mother Language stems from the inevitable obligation of the same time. But nothing can be higher from the realization of priority of the Mother Language.

I once again congratulate you, and wish you health, successes and at least, respect in your honourable work. Please, accept your awards as honest assessment of your invaluable work.”

Doctor, professor, Samvel Muradyan, Head of YSU Armenian Literature Chair, thanked the NA Speaker for the award, underlining that it obligates to be persistent, develop the Armenian language, with that contributing to the reinforcement of our country. In the opinion of Aida Israelyan, teacher of Yerevan N 24 Basic School, the future of the nation is not only the achievement of mothers, but also of the teachers, and first of all, teachers of the Mother Language. She said a word of gratitude to the NA Speaker for assessing them on Mother Language Day, which, according to Ms Israelyan, is a double honour.