Other than the fun on this 1st day of April (actually, no one is quite sure of the origin of April Fools’ Day), there are in fact many other meaningful days people around the world observe in April. Most of us are aware that those of Christian faith reflect and celebrate Easter around this time of the year, but have you ever heard of the celebration for the UN Language Days? There are altogether six official languages used at the United Nations (UN): Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish, and each is marked with a celebration day.
April 20th, the UN will celebrate the Chinese Language Day, and on 23rd April, the English Language Day. While the Chinese Language Day was chosen to pay tribute to the mythical four-eyes figure, presumed inventor of the Chinese characters – Cangjie (仓颉) some 5,000 years ago, the English Language Day was chosen to remember William Shakespeare, the famous english bard (on the day of his death and observed birthday).
Today, Chinese is spoken by almost 16% of the world’s population, and English is spoken by almost 20%, this means almost one in every three of us will be celebrating our language day this month. So if you speak one or both of these languages, let’s celebrate April with good and thoughtful communication!